Paper Topic: Nudity and Protest in Social Movements.
• Introduction:
Nudity is used as a strategy to allure public attention. It was first used in 1914 by the “Freedomites” in Saskatchewan to shed light towards their attitude against a materialistic life (Makarova, V, 2013). Like many other social tactics; Public nudity has many obstacles such as: the lawful and cultural acceptance of nudity. It is often regarded as an indecent tactic by society. However nudity in protesting is very convenient in attracting media attention.
This paper will focus on the effectiveness of public nudity as a tactic of protesting, how it brings attention to a certain social movement, obstacles facing nudity and how it differs within different cultures and countries.
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FEMEN: is a Ukrainian feminist protest group that uses their bare chests to bring attention to a certain social aspect. About FEMEN. Retrieved from http://femen.org/about
• Body:
Main point #1: How nudity is used and effective is the use public nudity is used as a tactic of protesting? How it brings attention to a certain social movement?
-Nudity is often associated with vulnerability (Carr-Gomm, 2010). For example: in 2007, 600 people went nude on a glacier in the Alps to show human vulnerability. Demonstrating the fact that people might be unable to protect themselves from future climate change. Another example is the World Naked Bike Ride (started in 2004) that takes place once every year. Cyclists express the vulnerability they feel while riding their bikes and promote bicycle friendly roads. (Shaffer, M S. 2008)
-Nudity highlights the connection people have with nature. For example: PETA launched a campaign called “Lettuce Ladies”; it promotes veganism by dressing young ladies in a bikini made out of lettuce assembling in a city center and handing out leaflets about veganism. Another effective method used by PETA in 1997 is the “I’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur” where celebrities pose naked to raise awareness of the unjust treatment of animals how and hunted down for their fur. (Lunceford,
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Nudity might also bring the wrong attention to a certain social movement. For example WNBR involves a mass demonstration of nudity many feel that it should take place under a controlled environment at a certain time of day and certain area. People who take part in the WNBR are often seen as willing to engage in exhibitionism or publicly demonstrate sexual arousal. The acceptation of nudity relies on the condition of social attitudes towards it. However, without a doubt nudity does generate a lot of media
In Phyllis Chesler’s article “France is Brave and Right to Ban the Burqa,” Chesler uses several persuasive appeals to build her argument praising burqa bans. I will be providing a rhetorical analysis as well as a Toulmin analysis of this article.
Sinopole, Angelica M. "No Saggy Pants: A Review of the First Amendment Issues Presented by the State's Regulation of Fashion in Public Streets." Penn St. L. Rev. 113 (2008): 329.
...oday there are increasingly fewer attacks on the student body regarding their clothing, undoubtedly to prevent upsetting more parents. We can see in Source F that this pressure to look a certain way never really ends, and this is true for both men and women. Although this pressure to have a perfect appearance doesn’t stop after high school, the Bedford North Lawrence Community Schools should be understanding and more lenient on some of the less scandalous clothing choices to make students feel comfortable and give them a realistic feel for how people dress and behave in public. In the end, everyone’s body is their own personal business and should not be dictated by another person or shamed for how it is presented, however BNL behaved the exact opposite of this at the beginning of the school year, making the way the administration handled the situation inappropriate.
One such example of this is the symbol of Julia’s scarlet Anti-Sex League sash. The league itself is vehemently opposed to any type of sexual act or expression, but the sash they use to represent themselves is worn in a very sexual manner, as described in the novel itself. “A narrow satin sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips” (Orwell 11-12). It draws attention to two very highly sexualized parts of the body, the breasts and the hips. This could be a reinforcement of the theme of “sexual freedom vs. political freedom.” The members of this league have, like all Party members, absolutely no political freedom, and as a consequence, also have no sexual freedom. The government, for whatever reasons, has decided to eliminate sex (or to at least make it an unenjoyable act). They feel that by denying their subjects this base human need, that they will be better able to control them as well. Fortunately though, they ultimately fail in this endeavor. People like Julia who are willing to accept a loss of their political freedom are not so willing to give up their sexual freedom as well. As Winston says, Julia “is only a rebel from the waist downwards” (Orwell 163). Even though Julia hersel...
By comparing a basic Puritan to a basic Christian (of which 2.2 billion people or 32% of the world’s population is (Harper)), it becomes clear that the Puritan culture shares a large number of similarities. One of their bigger vexations is their arguments over public nudity. Depending on its usage, nudity may be considered a problem. Puritans of clean origins viewed public indecency as a negative influence; however, it was never actually written into law that a person could not walk around outside naked. The Puritan culture did, however, incorporate some forms of nudity into publications or plays (The Outlook). Outside of that type of judgment, nakedness was looked down upon harshly. Ever since the invention of the internet, many forms of nudity have swarmed around everywhere, becoming so massive that it could become accredited as a ‘public’ form of physical vulgarity. Evolving from simple ‘wink, wink’ jokes to full blown obscene movies, public nudity has scarred much of humanity. Many people would argue that nudity in a complete sense should be eradicated or at least ‘filtered.’ The Puritan culture almost had the perfect answer to our problem with such offensive matters: limit it by law. Almost as simple as activating ‘SafeSearch’ on a web browser, enforcing governmental law on a touchy topic would possibly solve the
Welch, Michael Flag Burning: Moral Panic and the Criminalization of Protest (Social Problems and Social Issues).
Zernike, Kate. “School Dress Codes vs. a Sea of Bare Flesh.” The New York Times 11 Sept 2001.
The events that took place during the halftime show of the Super Bowl may have shocked and angered many parents for exposing such sexual behavior and nudity to their children, but there were also a great number of people who questioned why people were so upset over a few seconds of screen time that Janet Jackson’s left breast received. After all, it was simply part of the female anatomy. Many people argued that it wasn’t just nudity, that it was “softcore” pornography because of the sexual conduct that was behind the performance. It is understandable that Jackson and Timberlake’s routine was full of sexual innuendo, but the majority of young children usually don’t pick up on such behavior and thus a simple “wardrobe malfunction.”
"How Does a Strict Dress Code Cause Problems for Kids?" Everyday Life. Web. 20 May 2014. .
Women in Iran don’t have this luxury.They never got the choice to wear what they wanted to because religious customs were enforced into the law. In “Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return”, Satrapi states, Little details made a big difference in the fight against the rule(Satrapi,84). When some of the women defied the laws set by the government, they discreetly had demanded their freedom.Makeup or colored clothing displayed their demand. They wanted to express themselves so they rebelled with these little actions risking arrest. Their choice of clothes was never given to them so they demanded the right by rebelling. After years of not being able to express themselves they felt as though they were representing the community with the same clothes, but they wanted their own. Azar Nafisi says in “Reading Lolita in Tehran”,” Does she realize how dangerous she can be when every stray gesture is a disturbance to public safety?”(Nafisi,83). The author emphasizes that many actions and clothing are banned so there is opportunity to rebel. Rebelling is demanding for it to be changed. Clothing and movements can be an act that represents the demand. This granted them the ability to rebel and
Using Haslanger’s (2012) example of ‘crop tops’, the real world is the 7th grade pre-teen girls, that have the belief or ‘facts’ that it is ‘cute’ and fashionable to wear crop tops and are therefore, influences the experiences of their world through the social interaction these girls encounter at school defining the extensions of ‘cute’. Furthermore, in relation to Lea and Young’s (1984) three causes of crime, this example of deviance/difference shows that the relative deprivation experienced in this example, is the ‘certain’ girls who wear crop tops and the ‘other’ girls who are deprived of doing so. The subculture is related to where these ‘other’ girls are unable to achieve the ‘goal’ of wearing a crop top instead wear tracksuits as a way of trying to achieve the same values in this social reality of ‘cute’. And finally, marginalisation of girls who don’t wear crop tops become ‘chubby’ girls and the girls that do wear crop tops are sexualised (Haslanger, 2012). Forms of protest here may be through the means of ‘body-shaming’ or ‘slut-shaming’ (Papadopoulos,
It is proclaimed that dress codes objectify females in an unfair manner. Ways in which they do this is by making one feel bad about their body and blaming them for publicizing sexual harassment. Dress code violation often results in girls being removed from class and missing the lesson. Females get sent home, given a hideous pair of clothes to change into, or restricted from meaningful school functions like the prom. A student named Marcia Stevens personally experienced this type of discrimination. Before the incident, she was involved in her reputation was different; teachers classified her as “a fine student without behavioral problems.” (Pomerantz 1 ) It wasn 't the clothes she had on but rather the amount of cleavage she was showing. Stevens cleavage was only visible because her chest is a bit larger than the other girls. “She was punished for having the wrong kind of ("fat," "messy") body in an article of clothing that was not considered inappropriate on other kinds of ("thin," "neat") bodies. Marcia 's body was "inappropriate" because it spilled out; it was not "ladylike" or "school like," it was not tidy, and it was not easily contained. In short, her body was visible as a body. And the visibility of a young woman 's body, according to this dress code interpretation, was tantamount to a crime. Her body made "maintaining a suitable school atmosphere"
Dress code is a major controversy that has been raging in public schools for decades. The first dress code law was established in 1969 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The incident that caused this law to take effect was one in which several high school students wore black armbands to school in order to protest against the Vietnam War. This was considered offensive, and the Court decided that schools may limit the students’ freedom of expression if there is a legitimate concern that it will disturb the learning environment for other students or disregard the rights of others. Today, over half of the Dress codes in public schools are constantly being updated and modified, what with students’ ever-changing fashion trends. The purpose of dress codes
In conclusion, dress code will eventually be less enforced as generations to come bring this issue to more attention. As it is an important element of first impressions, freedom of expression, and a new societal movement; the harsh and unnecessary punishment placed upon students is something to be repealed. Although disciplinary actions are to be taken if the clothing of another student is in direct violation with another’s rights and educational process. Dress code should be something of the past, and expressive liberties should be one of the
More and more, young women are being targeted and punished for dress code violations. While this may be due to the fact that fashion in today’s society is all about tight clothes, it could also lead to more