The female nude throughout history can be seen as a beautiful,natural, mythical or sexual being. Over the years the nude has become more sleazy, vulgar and crass. With the modern day nude I think of page 3, nip slips and women posting there unmentionable in zoo. Today there are hundreds of celebrities out there who do sexy photo shoots to get the male gaze approval.
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| Then and now of nudes, who says either of them are correct. |
The most famous bod that people can't stop looking at and can't stop talking about (including me) is Kim Kardashian. Over the past few month we have seen two pictures of Kim, one of her fully naked with two black bars over her privates. The other picture she is with model Emily Ratajkowski where they are both topless with that little black bar over the boob area, flipping the bird to the camera, Classy!!
These photos has sprung a massive feminist debate about the body, objectification of the female and just how much we are sick of seeing this woman's flesh. Kim Kardashian has defended her pictures saying she is “empowering” women and people who are criticizing are slut shaming her. People needs to tell Kim what slut shaming is, they are not shaming you they are just sick of seeing your naked, posed and airbrushed body. I haven't even mentioned the amount of plastic surgery this woman and her whole family have had and pass it off as a beauty regime. Young girls believe this is an attainable achievement and it is basically not possible because unfortunately not everyone is blessed with millions of dollars. As a feminist I do not agree with Kim's message, if she came out to be honest about her body she could be a good role model for young women. She is a mother of two and apart from them being an accessory I have never seen a picture of her feeding her baby or even just showing women how your body evolves when you have created a life. Do not think that I think she should just be seen as a covered up saint, I know Kim Kardashian is a gorgeous sexy women and she should not stop that but when you sell yourself on the fake image of perfection you need to stop. Imperfections are extremely sexy remember that.
Enough of Kim Kardashian, she was just an example of how women believe they are using their bodies to empower themselves but they are just another figure for the male gaze. I have found three women I want to talk about who use their bodies in their work and in their activism to show that women can express their views by using their incredible bodies and not in an objective manner.
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy is not an artist, she is a feminist activist from Egypt. In 2011 she posted on her blog a picture of herself wearing only stocking and red shoes. This image to me and many other westerners is not a big deal we see far worse in The Star but in her homeland where veiling and gender segregation is apart of their history.This photo is very powerful of a woman who is not taking it any more and showing to her country and others that there will be an uproar.
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| Not the greatest picture, its a hard picture to find with no censors. |
She created a different sort of uproar, Elmahdy received death threats, someone attempted to rape her and kidnap her. Luckily she has received political asylum in Sweden. This is where I believe she met the radical feminist group FEMEN, which is a group of women who protest topless around Europe about sex tourism, homophobia and religious institutions and many more issues. There is a documentary of Netflix called I am Femen which documents the groups achievements, I really enjoyed it so if you are interested check it out.
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| Great Watch. |
She has protested with them naked,in this case protesting about religion. In 2014 she posted an explicit photo of herself on her facebook page. Naked and menstruating on the flag of IS, while alongside her a woman dressed in a black hijab flicks off the camera and defecates on the flag too.
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| It takes a lot to shock me but the first time I saw this I was shocked, in a good way! |
This to me is beyond crazy and this woman deserves a medal because there are journalist and personalities on TV who are too scared to talk about IS and she is protesting with her womanhood showing that, don't be scared to offend. This women is using her body, her nudity to protest the wrongs in her world and in the most powerful way, she has not sexualised her body, she is showing the world that women are here and they are not to be messed with.
Nona Faustine
Nona Faustine is an American artist who uses her body to show the audience what it means to be a woman in the 21st century by exploring with her body, issues about the black body within photography and history. Her white shoe series depicts the artist naked in New York City in the same location where slaves were sold. Faustine uses her identity to show the vulnerability and powerlessness of slavery.
Faustine was inspired by black women throughout history who were subjected to stereotypical black subjects skewed in favour of a white hegemonic perspective. She took inspiration from a photo of an enslaved woman named Delia, who she first encountered in Carrie Mae Weems piece from, Here I saw What Happened I Cried. Her work is also inspired by the story of Saartjie Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman exhibited throughout the 19th century due it her large buttocks.
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| Here I saw What Happened I Cried. |
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| La Belle Hottentot, a 19th century French print of Baartman |
The use of women's bodies for socio-political reasons is still very controversial particularly for black women. Last year black woman protesters marched topless during San Francisco rush hour to draw attention to police brutality against black women a move that drew admiration and criticism. These women are using the brutal past of slavery and voyeurism of the black woman body to empower the black movement now. Check out the groups of black lives matter and say her name to show what all these amazing activities are doing today.
Hannah Wilke.
Hannah Wilke is one of my favourite artist and one of the biggest names in the feminist movement today. She used her body to express her personal feminist manifesto, I will be talking about her S.O.S Scarification Object Series which represents one of Wilkes earliest experiments with performance. This series is very ambiguous and many feminist at the time believed she was just posing naked to show the world her beautiful body. Yes, Wilke was incredibly beautiful but that does not mean she did not have something important to say. In her S.O.S series she is posing naked in silly costumes and is covered in little chewing gums which are representing “the cunt.”
Wilke is mocking the male gaze and satirizes gender stereotypes in her poses. Wilke expressed why she cover herself with chewing gum,
“I chose gum because it's the perfect metaphor for the american woman - chew her up, get what you want out of her, throw her out and pop in a new piece.”
Wilke work was not taken seriously and many critics considered her work “essentialist.” This criticism came from many powerful feminist whose judgement unfortunately enabled the will suppression of such work by the mainstream art. It was not until her Intra Venus series in which she depicted her battle through cancer, still posing in a seductive manner whilst bruised and tubes protruding through her skin, she is showing the audience and her critics that she has always had a powerful outlook on the female body and her beauty unfortunately got in the way of her message.
I will never get why women hate on women, even feminist can't help themselves just because someone is beautiful does not mean they don't have anything important to say. Wilke was definitely not the first or last feminist who used her body to express their opinion, so why did it take her death from cancer to get the recognition she deserved? I will leave you with a quote from Wilke to her haters,
“People give me this bullshit of, “what would you have done if you weren't so gorgeous? What difference does it make? … Gorgeous people die as the stereotypical “ugly” everybody dies.
These women are all using there sexuality with an anarchic political agenda. Hannah Wilke I studied in school and whenever I have a crisis I think of Hannah Wilke and the struggles she had of not being taken seriously and she pushed and now she is one of the most iconic names in the feminist movement. The other two ladies I found whilst researching for this blog, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy shows me don't be scared to do anything because she is doing something far more radical for a bigger purpose. Nona Faustine shows me that there are many different women of the 21st century don't hide away.
Loofs,
MAW
