Are Breasts the Best?

(Originally posted on my personal blog here.)

Today’s titillating post is about boobs. But first let’s talk about stamps! Yes, stamps. This summer, France unveiled its new postage stamp, one that features the face of lady France herself, La Marianne. Except this was Marianne as you’ve never seen her before. She looked like a Disney princess. No seriously. Look:

She has huge eyes, a button nose, thick waves of hair pinned back with a flower, looking extremely demure, her iconic Phrygian cap almost unnoticeable in the clean monotone lines. The artist, Olivier Ciappa, claims to have drawn his inspiration from Inna Shevchenko, of the international radical feminist group FEMEN, who was recently granted asylum in France after fleeing prosecution in her homeland. He believes the original bare breasted Marianne would have been a member of FEMEN (LOL).

FEMEN is well-known for their nude publicity/activist stunts. The images that flood through the media in their wake are filled with topless women bombarding city halls, embassies, and even Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral with phrases such as “Fuck your morals” and “Nudity is freedom” across their chests, fists in the air and screaming their heads off. Demure, angelic, sweet poster children of the French government they are not. They’re not exactly fans of most governmental and cultural institutions, seeing as most of them, you know, are the patriarchy.

La Marianne has gotten several makeovers throughout history. When first chosen as a symbol for the new Republic, it was a purposeful move away from the male-centric monarchy, which plastered the king’s face on everything in sight. Her depiction drew heavily upon classical Roman aesthetics, up in popularity since the Renaissance. She was a young, poised, determined woman that embodied Liberty, Reason, and the Nation. Once the Reign of Terror set in, however, images of Marianne became more violent and revolutionary – often a bare breasted woman leading men into battle. In the centuries since, Marianne has flitted back and forth between representing the bourgeois state (stoic and clothed) and the democratic and social ideals of the state (Phrygian cap, bare breasted, and armed). During World War II she gained high importance as a symbol against the Vichy regime, but appeared less and less in the media in the post-war era. In recent years, a different stunt-based feminist group, La Barbe, has taken to placing bright, colorful beards on various female statues of La Marianne, Justice, or Liberty across the city of Paris. Their argument: stop using women as a symbol of France, because if you take a look at the government, you won’t find us represented; stop pretending this isn’t a man’s country.

Beards on statues might be a comedic tactic à la the Guerilla Girls, but when boobs are used in protest? People FREAK OUT. We’re far from the days of 15-17th c. European court fashionistas such as Agnès Sorel or Queen Mary II who wore dresses specifically designed to expose their breasts. A few hundred years later, with Europeans relatively lax with nudity, after Breasts not Bombs won equal legal rights in the US for women to go topless, after countless breastfeeding and breast cancer campaigns, breasts continue to remain controversial when viewed outside of an artistic or nude beach context, and thus remain a useful tool for feminists.

Anna Hustol, founder of FEMEN, started using nudity in protest in 2008 when the group protested the exploitation of Ukranian women in the sex trade industry, clad in skimpy and erotic clothing, makeup smeared across their faces, daring anyone to call them prostitutes. Starting in 2009, the group switched their tactic to going topless during protests around the Ukraine. In 2011 the group began taking action internationally, first in Belarus, then accosting Putin at the Hanover trade fair in Germany. After chopping down a cross in Kiev in 2013, high profile member if FEMEN, Inna Shevchenko, received death threats and fled to Paris in fear of arrest.

In March when Tunisian activist Amina Sboui bared breasts with “my bod belongs to me” and “fuck your morals” written across her chest in solidarity with FEMEN, she was bombarded with criticism and death threats, along with a two month stint in prison. As Julia Stoller over at Blue Stockings pointed out, the event sparked criticisms from the left and right – not only from societies where nudity is highly taboo, but also from feminists in Puritanical America who couldn’t help but shout at FEMEN: The male gaze! What about THE MALE GAZE! Even FEMEN got themselves a lot of heat for their comments essentially denouncing women who wore veils by choice, calling them “fearful victims” and “brainwashed.” In response, writers such as Laila Alawa eloquently called out FEMEN for their intolerance and expressed how such “savior campaigns” repeatedly fail to include the women they are trying to liberate.

We have to be able to recognize accessibility or lack thereof in our feminist actions and words. FEMEN’s nude protests, and other movements that use reclaiming hypersexuality as a tactic, rely on an idealized view of femininity that is overwhelmingly white. It’s a femininity that is pure, innocent, demure, youthful, and poised, which they challenge abrasively with actions representing direct opposition to said ideals. It’s a femininity not historically applied to non-white women, which instead is used to stand in contrast to (and thus support) the images perpetuated throughout society of black Jezebels, Aunt Jemimas, Suzie Wongs, spicy Latinas, and what few “primitive” native populations are left in Western society. Furthermore, its emphasis on equating breasts with femininity (also used by several “real women” and breast cancer campaigns) isn’t embracive of women with “boyish” figures, older women whose sexuality has been thrown by the wayside, survivors of mastectomies, or trans women.

We have never understood why anyone wouldn’t want to call herself—or himself—a feminist!!!!! Let’s get real here: the same people who say they are not feminists support feminist issues…By the way, we think there are many feminisms, and we support most of them. – The Guerilla Girls

I personally have no problem with the “f-word” and I often feel that any woman who denies feminism is only kidding herself and/or deeply down a dark rabbit hole of internalized oppression. At the same time, however, I recognize that the word and its various associations can be scary or unattractive to others. Certainly a large part of the hesitation is due to the stereotype of bra-burning, man-hating radicals coming to take away your razors and lipstick. But feminism needs to admit its other PR problem: lack of intersectionality and lack of a diversity in ideologies throughout the wider movement. Many women are hesitant to claim feminism as their own because it just doesn’t speak to them. Sometimes I lose sight of this because my own media digest is so overloaded with production from likeminded people (thanks, Feministing!), but the reality is that more often than not, feminists enjoy pretending the movement doesn’t have a race problem just because the 80s happened and white feminists realized Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, et al are geniuses. Clearly the popularity of the Solidarity Is For White Women discussion suggests that this is not the case.

Perhaps one solution is to come up with new terminologies that denote what focus your feminism may have, but isn’t it a bit ridiculous to attempt delineating ideologies that are extremely personal in nature? Is it really too much to ask that we make an already rich word more enveloping of other ideas? By inviting self-division we only make ourselves weaker. I love feminism and I want to share it with everyone I meet. I know I have no right to police other women’s beliefs. Nevertheless, acceptance can be a radical act in and of itself, which is why I believe in the adoption of intersectionality as a main feminist platform. “MY FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL OR ELSE IT WILL BE BULLSHIT!“