Nude Protest Effects in Capitalist Democracies: Something’s Gotta Give

by Dada for Dadaisms LLC

March 8, 2025, yet another International Women’s Day commemoration, witnessed protests in several European countries, including Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and France, to shed light on the inequalities that women still face. The protests mainly shed light on violence against women, equal pay and archaic patriarchal politics. In France, the protest was organized by Greve Feministe, with the Femen group, originally founded in Ukraine in 2008, going topless while having painted their chest areas with flags of a few countries that represented male-dominated politics, and wearing the word ‘no’ as mustaches.

Of course, the media ate up the Femen group topless protest to the extent that people would think that that was the only protest that took place that day. One March 11 article on BuzzFeed by Siena Giljum even adopted the angle of how American women were praising the French women for their bravery and the French people for their high morality, and brought in quotes from social media of American women saying how American men would simply watch the Femen protest on a loop while enjoying the view and ignoring the message behind it.

Protesting in the nude is not a new concept, of course. People have protested many causes using nudity to receive more media attention and publicity over the centuries, some of these causes being: losing farmland rights, peace against war, equal facilities and pay for female sports teams, femicide, and law and policy changes. Some protests are held by individual humans, such as the recent protest against Brexit by Victoria Bateman when she walked into a meeting of the Faculty of Economics at Cambridge University on 29 June 2016 while naked after she had written on her nude torso: “Brexit leaves Britain naked”- or the nude protest by a man named Rick Gibson on 8 February 2017, when Gibson walked naked in front of the court laws in Vancouver in 7degrees Celsius weather to protest the ban of human gene genetic engineering.

Some nude protests were in the form of campaigns, such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)’s campaign against wearing fur, using their “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” slogan while featuring actors and models – that campaign ran from 1992 until 2020. Some nude protests were held by groups of both males and females, such as the 1903 protest that took place in Canada by the Spiritual Christian Freedomites to protest changes to the Canadian immigration policy.

The first protest in British recorded history was held by Lady Godiva who lived during the early 11th century, and who was wedded to the Earl of Mercia. It seems that the Earl had severe taxation regulations over the lands he owned, and Lady Godiva constantly protested his severity and asked him to have mercy on the people inhabiting his lands. It seems all her pleas fell on deaf ears, because one day she donned the dress of peasants and walked through the lands owned by the Earl. The inhabitants of these lands had so much love and respect for her that they went into their homes and shut their windows and doors to save her the embarrassment of being seen wearing clothing designated for those much below her station. Her protest got the intended result, and her husband the Earl lowered his taxes. This protest by Lady Godiva was so important that it was told throughout generations of English people until she became a legend in the 13th century. However, the legend depicts Lady Godiva as going into the lands naked on a horse with only her hair covering her nakedness, as opposed to her wearing clothing designated for those beneath her station at the time.

Clearly, it has been tried and tested and proven that protesting in the nude attracts more attention to the cause at hand. However, as time is passing, this type of protest is not having the impact that it used to anymore. When protesting in the nude used to happen, it used to be a surefooted means to be heard and seen by those in power, with results being felt by the people almost immediately. Nowadays, however, this type of protest seems to have lost its impact and has become a movement that merely sheds light on pain and screams that remain in the dark. Those in power seem to have become desensitized, even immune, to the cries of their people.

In fact, many demonstrations these days seem to have zero impact on the status quo, whether they are in the nude or fully clothed. The Arab Springs protests, the recent anti-war protests, and many others of recent history have had zero effect in any policy or law or governmental changes. It seems that the only changes we see are those that happen as a result of the will of stronger parties or governments.

This begs the question: If people elect leaders to represent them and to serve their needs and better their lives, but leaders only want to reach power to serve their egos and line their pockets, then shouldn’t something change in this scenario? This leads to other questions: What is it that should change? Is it only the leaders that should be changed? Or is it the whole system of election? Or is it the whole concept of modern democracy itself? And these beg other questions too: If governments established democracies in the face of autocracies and monarchies and dictatorships, then why do today’s democracies seem to share the same outlook and behavior as their predecessors?

It seems that the main problem in today’s world is Capitalist Democracy. Capitalism is based on what the word embodies: having capital. If you have capital, you can grow your capital and achieve wealth and high status and power. If you do not have capital, then you have nothing to grow and to build on, and you live in struggle and poverty, sometimes barely making ends meet. Democracy, on the other hand, is based on the concept of servitude; the elected leaders are supposed to serve the people and to enact laws and policies and procedures that are for the highest good of the collective that lives under these leaders’ particular rule. For some reason, though, the qualities of capitalism have seeped into the pillars of democracy, and as a result we now have Capitalist Democracy – a democracy with leaders who want to capitalize on their status and wealth and power. In a Capitalist Democracy, no protest can have any effect because the leaders do not see any benefit to themselves from the people’s demands – there is simply nothing for the leaders to capitalize on, only something that would bring monetary and power loss.

Maybe the first step should be to return the concept of democracy to what it was first intended to be: the rule of the elected few over the many while listening to the many and serving the many in any way possible to achieve the best form of life for all. Will the nations exercising Capitalist Democracy accept to undergo this change? That is the big question. One thing is for certain, though: No protest in any Capitalist Democracy will have any effect, whether nude or otherwise.

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Nude Protest Effects in Capitalist Democracies: Something’s Gotta Give is a blog article written by Dada | copyright (c) 2025, Dadaisms LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction or redistribution of the blog article without written permission of the author is prohibited.