Naked Protests: The Language of Women’s Bodies at the End of Their Tether

Adopting a feminist standpoint, this article explores the language of women’s bodies at the end of their tether. It pauses on the varied affective registers communicated by different body parts during women’s naked protests. It reads the registers of exposed buttocks, the sociality of the protesting vagina, and the actions of bared breasts through affects of shame, disgust, and fear. This is done through an analysis of interview data from twelve women who participated in various naked protests in South Africa. These include protests in Dobsonville in 1990, student protests at three universities in 2016, and a naked protestor at the Gender Summit of 2018. The findings highlight the sociality and world-making possibilities of the protesting body. The different parts of protesting women’s bodies challenge patriarchy in distinct ways. The assembled bodies of naked women present a disruptive force whose affects create disorder. The women interdict heteropatriarchal, modernist, and capitalist assumptions of the body and normalized gender-based violence. Significantly, naked protestors illuminate how affects such as shame, disgust, and fear can be generatively repurposed and deflected onto those who violate women.