I have read bits of this thread over night. There is much fuckwittery here.
That is not the signs of a deranged woman delivering a failed or even ‘estoteric’ protest (as a poster on another thread tried to assert). This was part rallying call, delivered by a woman who wears a vagina suit or a vulva suit for work, and part protest of a woman who delivered a shock that was not actually indecent that would capture attention.
Or maybe, just maybe those who thought this was ‘indecent’ actually thought that she showed her ‘vagina’ or even her ‘vulva’ because they have not ever brought themselves to understand female anatomy. That someone would think that would be a woman’s natural pubic hair (still showing a lack of knowledge about the real female lived experience in this era of pornification) is remarkable.
Almost as remarkable as the article saying she exposed her ‘genitals’! Plus they seemed to have missed the multiple facets of this particular action.
The shock value was that she lifted her skirt.
That she was fully covered means people are talking about her words, not her arousal at the fact she urinated on herself while dressed as the opposite sex. Not that she stripped naked and played the piano with her fully exposed genitals. Not that people who will have been traumatised by being told to ‘suck trans dick!’. Not that she physically assaulted someone by violence. Certainly not a protest with a baseball bat painted with the trans flag. Or a group of people blocking access to a film or a seminar or a debate.
No. She, a woman and all the symbolism of women doing this in the past, actually lifted her skirt and showed the world …. a merkin! Then delivered a statement that was talking about how the government just treated vulnerable women.
By also symbolically making herself vulnerable! A fact that most women will have subconsciously picked up on even if it took time to process it.
No. As an adult human female, I understood her action, even if I didn’t know the historical significance. It is not hard to understand this.
Posters also seem to ignore that the women were checked at security for wearing the very hateful haberdashery. I doubt her known vagina outfit would have been allowed into the gallery.
A woman lifting her skirt is NOT doing this from a position of POWER as a man does to show their fucking penis!!!!
Fuck!! That this needs to pointed out on a feminism chat board.
There is the historical context of defiance.
There is also the symbolism here that this brave woman was absolutely reminding the world of the basis of women’s oppression!!
Her very female body!!!!
She was not arousing herself by doing it! There was no sexualised element here.
How bizarre has this movement become that this woman’s protest has been sexualised the way it has? That a woman showing a merkin has been depicted as a sexual act is fucked up.
That you (general ‘you’) might consider it crass, fine. That you cannot understand the symbolism is also more about ‘you’ as a person than about Elaine.
Yes, she did it ‘after’ the announcement of the votes!
FFS.
Who the fuck would think this would work as a protest BEFORE the vote?
That indeed would be a mistimed protest and the impact of anger at the vote would have been lost.
Maybe that is what some posters would have wanted though.