Be the Change
8-minute read
Many of us have been shocked this year by the violent war against women in Iran. We’ve seen Iranian women standing up against aggressive religious leaders who have tried to force them to cover up. The brave women putting their lives on the line seem to embody the essence of activism – they can see a better future, and they’re willing to fight for it. It’s time for us to take a leaf out of their book.
Luckily, I live in a place that is, for the most part, much more liberated. I’m able to wear my hair however I like, among other freedoms. The threat I put myself under by testing these freedoms is much less. The stakes are lower.
But regardless of the stakes, there are areas in which I am not entirely free.
It isn’t breaking news that women’s bodies are heavily governed. Here, I’d like to discuss the hypothetical other end of the spectrum: a world in which women can be completely naked and completely uninhibited.
Commercial porn and page three push passive and degrading images further into our society. In the media, images of naked women are socially approved and rarely used to convey anything but sexuality. When female nudity is taken out of this context, many viewers are confounded. While public female nudity or semi-nudity is treated as some kind of moral offence, public male nudity or semi-nudity is seen as humorous if not normal.
Naked and partially naked women are objectified and dehumanised, used as props to sell things, and assumed to be only for the approval and titillation of the male population.
If a man sees a semi-naked woman on the beach who doesn't fit society's definition of beautiful, he will point her out to his mates, pulling a face. If he sees a semi-naked woman who is beautiful by society's standards, he will point her out and pull a different face. Either way, the woman is sexualised, and it is assumed that she is there for his gaze.
It's worth recognising that the liberation of my body is nothing in comparison to the liberation of others because I am young, white, slim, able-bodied, and I live in a relatively liberated country. By sharing my naked body, I am not putting my life on the line as we have seen the women of Iran do this year.
The censoring and regulation of women’s bodies is an intersectional issue that crosses race, age, ability, size, and sex, among other axes. Across the intersections, women’s freedom is limited when it comes to nudity purely because they are women. My nipples are censored because I am a woman. My body will be judged twice as harshly because I am a woman, as will my sharing it. And it will be seen as an object (there to be acted upon), rather than a subject (for its own action) because I am a woman.
My hope is that by sharing my body, you will see that that is all it is: a body. Under your clothes, you have one too! So does the person sitting next to you, along with your sister, your teacher, your local MP… it's not a scary concept and it certainly isn't a sexual one. Our bodies are conflated with indecency and sex, and it is insisted that they stay in reserve; distributed and consumed according to rules laid out by patriarchy. This distribution serves to promote the billion-dollar porn companies which commodify women's bodies and have nothing to do with women's autonomy, feeding the idea that women's bodies are to be exposed only to amuse men for their own profit.
This is me taking my autonomy back. It is no one else’s right to tell me how much of it I should share with the world. My body is mine to govern, and if anybody has a problem with how I do that, they can look away.
Self acceptance is neither vain nor egocentric. I find being naked liberating and empowering, and I envision a future in which women can feel those things unashamedly. There's a fine (nonexistent?) line between being a vain slut and being an insecure prude. Either way is destructive. It's impossible!
When a person shares their naked self in a public place, they are giving you permission to see it and think of it how you will. They are not giving you permission to degrade it with abuse, or to advise them on what they should or should not do with it. Whether people feel empowered by being totally covered up or by being totally naked, their choices should be theirs to make.
The women of Iran have been an inspiration and a wake-up call that screams, ‘Be the change you wish to see’.
I want to see a world in which women have confidence and are not shamed and abused for it; a world where it's cool to make people feel good about themselves, no matter what they are or are not wearing. It should be normal to feel unapologetically liberated.