The female nude is a political act

Female nudity in Western society is still a problem.Gender hierarchy has something to do with it, and the control of patriarchal society has something to do with it.

• In our society the female nude is still a problem, as demonstrated by the controversies on various occasions linked to public figures.
• The issue is complex because it concerns how the representation of the female body over the years has been functional to strengthening the gender hierarchy, but it also has to do with the freedom of women to freely show their bodies.
• Even within the feminist movement itself there are conflicting opinions on the matter, we have tried to draw the threads of the discussion thanks to the thoughts of authors, scholars and through the words of the protagonists of the controversies in question.

Because in 2024 the female nude, when it is the person who inhabits that body who shows it, does it still cause a sensation?It happens to stars, it happens to ordinary people when they show a few extra centimeters of skin on social media, when these are women.When it comes to nudity, in fact, female nudity is subject to careful discussion by public opinion, in particular when it concerns a agitated nudity, and not immediately, that is, when women themselves want to show their bodies.

The modesty and the female imagination has something to do with it, both powerful tools through which the patriarchal structure exercises its power control over women.One of the very first things that girls and boys are taught is that the body is not shown and that, to be considered respectable, one must behave and dress in a certain way.Being respectable is in fact the fundamental requirement to be considered desirable by the male universe:what we are taught from an early age is, therefore, essentially, to respect a package of rules whose ultimate aim is to please the male gender.These tools of control are functional to the prosperity of patriarchal society, which is based both on male privilege and on women's belief that they have to do or not do something to deserve the consideration and approval of the men who dot their lives, be they parents , partners or employers.

The representation of the female nude, feminist visions compared

The feminist academia presents different visions and theories on the female nude in a perspective that is not always unanimous.The academic TO.W.Eaton, for example, in his publication “What's wrong with the (female) nude?A feminist perspective on art and pornography” maintains that erotic art and in particular the female nude are functional tools to make the traditional attractive gender hierarchy, emphasizing male dominance, female submission and the objectification of the woman's body.

In fact, he claims that this eroticization plays a crucial role in perpetuate gender inequality analyzing the different ways in which works of art belonging to the female nude genre can be sexually objectifying and does so by relating pornographic productions to the traditional female nude:the latter not only eroticizes, but also aestheticizes the sexual objectification of women, and does so "from above", investing the message of female inferiority of a special authority.According to Eaton, this is a particularly effective way to promote sexual inequality in a way that normalizes it and makes it acceptable, even in the eyes of women themselves.

Another key reflection on the female nude in the feminist world is that of the Australian author and academic Germaine Greer who, in her 1970 essay "The female eunuch", asks whether the naked female body can ever be truly free and whether undressing represents theultimate expression of a woman's emancipation or if instead her undressed body is always subject to sexual objectification.

Germaine Greer imagined a feminism that would grant women the freedom to run, shout, speak loudly, and sit with their knees apart.In fact, Greer argued that, although the feminist instinct may lead many women to automatically reject any representation of the naked female body due to its commercial exploitation, the authentic and enacted female nude deserves to be rediscovered by women themselves, happy to show their nature with joy.

In fact, the writer criticizes the idea that female nudity is humiliating in itself and claims on the contrary that what offends is the commodification of an altered body compared to the real one, placed in poses that emphasize certain aspects and not others.For this reason, Greer herself posed naked for the erotic magazine "Stuck" in a not at all sensual pose, with her legs crossed behind her head and an amused and challenging expression on her face.The author also maintains that modesty, a feeling that is instilled in women from an early age, was a means to nullify female genius and that censorship cannot in any way be a weapon in the struggle for women's liberation.Greer ultimately invites women not to reject the depiction of their naked bodies, but rather to unmask the hypocrisy of dominant sexual ethics and aesthetics.In fact, the author underlines how it is necessary to reconsider the concept of female beauty and to go beyond commercial stereotypes.

The myth of beauty

He is also of this opinion Naomi Wolf, author of "The myth of beauty", one of the key texts of the third wave of feminism in which the author argues that every aspect of how the idea of ​​perfection relating to the image of the female body was constructed is a direct expression of patriarchal power and oppression.This includes both the standards of beauty that have been imposed on women over the years, making them use energy and resources to adapt to them at all costs, as well as the repression of sexual instincts and the glorification of the body as such.According to Wolf, in fact, when the ideas of the sexual revolution of 1968 met consumerist behavior models, the need arose to rekindle the female guilt about sex and sexuality.According to Wolf, contemporary women are victims of a cultural repression of female sexuality, initiated with the precise aim of mutilating the growing power that women were acquiring in society.

In fact, in the seventies women were not only experimenting freer sexual mores, but they had begun to have access to positions of power also in the workplace, from this situation, according to Wolf, it became necessary to develop a model of beauty for the female imagination based on the "ideal" body and on an imaginary linked to sexuality entirely nothing but free.Women's freedom has always been a dangerous prospect for patriarchal society, which has found a way, through the sexual objectification of the body and the promotion of certain standards of beauty, to once again exercise control over women.

FKA Twigs and Elodie issues

Most of the texts cited so far are the result of feminist analyzes and theories of the seventies, today, fifty years later, the Western culture still finds it difficult to accept the female nude when this is an expression of oneself and this is demonstrated by the recent cases of the censored commercial Calvin Klein which featured the singer as the protagonist FKA Twigs and the controversies that engulfed Elodie over the images promotions for his new album.In both cases the object of dispute was the nudity of the artists, exhibited in a proud and conscious manner.

In the case of FKA Twigs the commercial in question was even censored in the United Kingdom byASA, the Advertising Standards Authority which prohibited its diffusion.In the shot in question, then published by the singer herself on social media, the artist's body can be seen wrapped in a shirt, which however leaves the right side completely bare.The motivation that led the ASA to sanction the advertising in question lies in the "composition of the image, which focused the spectators' attention on the model's body rather than on the advertised clothing" and that her physical characteristics presented her as a “stereotypical sexual object”.The singer, far from feeling like a stereotypical sex object, responded by emphasizing that she is proud of her physicality as a strong black woman, whose body "has endured more pain than you can imagine" (with this phrase the singer refers to the fact that she overcame a very aggressive tumor).Many then noticed the double standard reserved for the male protagonist of the campaign, Jeremy Allen White whose image has not been censored and whose nudity, on the contrary, has also been glorified by the media themselves with titles such as "stunning body" and similar expressions.

As for Italy, it was the singer who was hit by controversy Elodie, "guilty" of having published a nude photo last September to promote his new single "A fari extinguishi" and of having worn, during the Roman date of his tour, a dress of Valentine open with a cut out on the belly and characterized by a deep slit in the mini skirt.“My body should not cause scandal: this is my body, my manifesto as a free woman“, said Elodie, claiming to be a feminist.“Many have told me that there is no need, but there certainly is!The body is ours and we are free to decide how to use it:for me it is art and freedom”.A freedom, the one claimed by Elodie, by Fka Twigs and by all the women who choose to show their nudity, which is constantly repressed by a system that accepts the representation of the female body only when it is controlled and complies with its own standards, when it is instrument of control and not of free expression. Showing your body can be a revolutionary act because it normalizes the revelation of female sexuality in all its power and freedom.

There has been a lot of talk about double standards regarding these events:in the case of the Calvin Klein advertisement, in fact, the commercial starring Jeremy Allen White is much more sexually suggestive, but was not sanctioned.At the same time, male artists who show their bodies, just like Elodie, are not subjected to the same moral scrutiny in a discrepancy in treatment that sees male artists who show their bodies glorified and sanctions female artists, guilty of wanting to freely express their sexuality.