In March of 2003, sf.Indymedia.org posted a story
(submitted by a man, willdoherty.org)
about a local march of “Boobies for Ashcroft” (“noting
particularly his decision to cover a barebreasted Lady Justice statue
with curtains during news conferences at the U.S. Department of
Justice building in Washington”), where 40 or so protesters
milled about at the San Francisco Federal Building before heading
to a bar to supposedly “fraternize” with federal employees.
While both men and women were pictured in the article, the three
portraits of men were humorous in nature: 1. A man topless, although wearing a stocking cap
and blocky sunglasses, stood with a sign asking who was a bigger
“boob,” him or Ashcroft
2. A man similarly topless wearing a sheep-head mask with a dollar
bill dangling from the mouth
3. A clothed man holding a large Ashcroft effigy in striped prison
garb
While there was a large group photograph depicting
nine women and two men, only one was deemed worthy of special attention,
as per the numerous reader responses:
Those are nice.
by Andy Appreciator
...probably the only protester there who should
have been topless.
Nice pair
by nificant
I'd hit it.
Though one anonymous poster posed the question of
objectification, it was neatly handled:
answer to question about exploitation of
female body
by GrimRC
“And what is this, if not exploiting the female body?”
Exploiting the male body!
While the female protester’s nudity was anything
but equivalent (risking far more consequences both socially and
legally) to the men’s going without shirts—even as those
leftist men are themselves imposing consequences upon those women
with their judgments, even that much can be easily forgotten with
a disingenuous claim of egalitarianism.
Even conservative pundits, such as the shock-jock Mark Steyn, weighed
in on this phenomenon:
“Even more telling than the human shields scramming out of
town is the alarming failure of recent ‘naked protests’
to get naked. Many of my fellow warmongers have mocked the nude
protests mounted by the women of California’s Marin County,
cruelly pointing out that many of the bits on show are excessively
flabby and saggy. But I’ll take what’s on offer. If
we have to have an incoherent, self-loathing ‘peace’
movement, then women showing off their hooters in support of a culture
that would stone them to death for showing off their ankles is about
as good as it’s gonna get. But, even by the impressive standards
of risibility demonstrated by the ‘peace’ movement,
has there ever been a sadder ‘naked protest’ than that
staged this week by the students of Illinois Wesleyan University?
The male ‘nudes for peace’ stood around wearing their
boxer shorts and, worse, little white ankle socks and sneakers.
C’mon, guys, why so shy about letting us inspect your weapons
of mass destruction? According to the Security Council resolution
on nude protesting, it’s a material breach to put material
over your breech. If you don’t want to take it off, maybe
you should skip the naked thing entirely, stay inside and read up
on what’s the capital of Saudi Arabia.”
—Richard Leader
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