Protests are pretty common place nowadays. After all, there are infinite things that can be found in the world, and public, non-violent action is a way to gain attention. There is often debate over what makes a protest effective and what tactics capture audience attention in the best way.
Today’s debate: Where does a group of topless females fall in the effectiveness spectrum?
Members of Ukranian women’s rights group Femen decided to find out.
According to the Huffington Post:
Members of the group most recently stripped down at an event promoting Iranian culture to reportedly demonstrate against the case of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a woman in Iran handed a death sentence for adultery. TheKyiv Post reports that a boob barrage was staged in October during a visit from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with members holding signs that read, “We won’t sleep with Kremlin midgets,” a less-than-subtle dig at the Russian premier’s diminutive height.
Ha. “Boob barrage.”
Anyway.
There are a couple of ways to look at this type of action. The first way is to look at it from the “these women are demonstrating against oppression of other women” by going topless. Which sounds effective, in a way. Another way to look at it is that all this type of action does is promote the objectification of women’s bodies. And yet another way to look at it is that the whole showing your breasts things is a distraction from the point of the demonstration.
So I’m going to leave this one up to you guys, because I’m not sure. Part of me wants to say that their action was a powerful display against the oppression of women, and half of me can’t even think about the message because I’m just distracted by breasts.
Thoughts?
I think it brings more attention to the boobs than the cause. I seriously doubt most people who notice the protest remember it as anything other than “these chicks were protesting something topless on Main Street today, it was weird.” I certainly would feel a bit out of place coming up to them to ask what they’re protesting.
I hate to be anti-boob (I really, really do), but I think something clever would garner more attention. Frankly, boobs are used to market just about everything from soap to football. Boobs are just overexposed *giggle*.
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