How the Female Body Can Become Revolutionary
Naked Bodies as Protest — If it makes men uncomfortable it’s probably working
The sad reality is that many women’s protests don’t have as much of an impact on society as we wish it would. Women’s protests are often scoffed at, made fun of, or belittled by men, people in power, and even other women. Women in less industrialized countries have even more difficulty getting their voices heard. As a last resort, many use their bodies in order to get a message across. The use of their bodies in protest can include protesting naked, using one’s femininity and sexuality to be heard, and can even include doing harm to one’s body and revolutionary suicide. By using their bodies to protest, it gives those that are considered subaltern a voice.
The Female Body as a Protest Tool
Gayatri Spivak asked the question “Can the Subaltern Speak?” but it’s a tricky question. Someone who is classified as subaltern is someone who lacks a voice that can be heard. It’s usually extremely difficult for an individual classified as subaltern to get their voice heard and if their voice is heard they are no longer considered subaltern. Women have an even more difficult time getting their voices heard. Those in power normally take little consideration into what women say when they protest verbally. In order to get their protest message across, many resort to using their bodies.
In 2015 women’s protest in Lima, Peru addressed the forced sterilization of Andean women that happened in the late 1990’s. The protesters made paper images of uterus’s and tied them to their waists. Red paint was used by the protesters to mimic blood and was smeared on their legs to show the brutality of the forced sterilizations. The women lifted up their skirts, which is normally seen as unacceptable behavior for a woman, in order to prove a point in their protest. Sabina Huillca was forced to undergo the sterilization process without her consent in 1996.
“A nurse put me on a stretcher and tied my hands and feet. When I woke up, the doctor was stitching my stomach. I started screaming, I knew I had been sterilized.”
President at the time Alberto Fujimori launched a family planning program that was intended to lower the poverty rates by preventing women from having children. The women who were sterilized were poor indigenous women that spoke Quechua. According to data that was released by Peru’s Health Ministry, over 260,000 Peruvian women were sterilized between 1996 and 2000. Many protests over these forced sterilizations have been happening in current times. In order to get their voices heard, many of the women have resorted by throwing their bodies into protest. The targeted group of women were originally poor indigenous women that were likely to be considered subaltern. For these women to be heard, they had to use their bodies as a form of protest as seen by the women who used red paint and lifted their skirts. As of 2016 investigations into the forced sterilizations have been opened.
American women protested Donald Trump’s racist and sexist remarks by posing mostly nude for their campaign #GrabHimByTheBallot. Campaign owners encouraged women to pose naked with only a ballot covering themselves.
“I want you to feel how strong your body is. I want you to look right at the camera with your eyes, because I want you confronting the viewer.”
The protest movement gained a lot of attention and attracted many women who wanted to pose nude for the campaign. The women wanted to prove that their bodies and their votes were two powerful things that they have control over.
Harming the Body for Protest and Revolutionary Suicide
Sometimes taking of one’s clothes in an act of protest doesn’t work for certain women. In countries where women are considered subaltern, they might be forced to harm themselves in order to get a message of their rebellion against oppression out.
In Afghanistan as many as 80% of marriages happen without the consent of the bride, who is usually a child. Brides are often unhappy with the marriage to a stranger and are often subjected to different kinds of abuse after getting married. Young women in Afghanistan are resorting to suicide in order to avoid being forced to marry.
“It’s a final resort and the last attempt at resistance, to not accept the situation women are being pushed into.”
Suicides are happening in towns that have little access to education and media. Monika Hauser explains that in cities, more of the women are educated and have access to media, so they realize there are other ways of living. In towns, arranged marriages are extremely common, but since the women know of no other way to live, they use suicide as a revolutionary tool to express their oppression. A study released by the Afghan Health minister found that 5 in 100,000 Afghan women commit suicide. Fauzia Nawabi conducted interviews with women who attempted suicide one or more times and asked them what their reasons were. Nawabi stated, “the real reason for their attempts was forced marriage almost every time.”
Another case of suicide as a protest tool is the attempted suicide of a woman in America who was facing deportation to Chile that happened in January of 2017. In response to Donald Trump’s immigration ban, the unnamed woman attempted suicide at JFK airport because of the distress the deportation was causing her. The woman took a handful of muscle depressants and 30 sleeping pills in the attempt. While waiting on the flight, people noticed she had fallen unconscious and was barely breathing. Police officers were called and she was transported to a hospital where she is now in stable condition, but the article fails to address that her suicide attempt was a means of rebellion against the Trump administrations harsh laws. Immigrants and people of color all over America face this same situation. The racism and fear that fills the Trump administration threaten all of us who are considered immigrants. We need to make people in power aware that these laws are oppression and resorting to suicide as means to avoid speaks louder than words ever could.
One has to be in a state of great oppression in order to commit suicide in order to escape their oppressors. Women are most often in the position of oppression and are often stripped of their voices and usual forms of protest do little to nothing in means of change. For women who lack a voice, they have to place their bodies into protest, whether it be nudity, bodily harm, or suicide. Women across nations need to realize that other women’s oppression belongs to them as well, and as women we need to stand in solidarity and understand that what’s happening to the “other” can happen to us as well.
