Maple Spring, ten years later | The naked body, an effective protest tool?

At the head of the procession, a banner on which one could read “without clothes for a transparent government”. As music, hundreds of voices chanting in unison “a naked people will never be defeated”. On May 3, 2012, students against tuition hikes took to the streets in their simplest way. The first of a few naked demonstrations that have marked the imagination. Is nudity an effective protest tool?

Veronique Larocque
The Press

“I made demonstrations. Maybe 20, 30? Honestly, I don’t know anymore. It was super important to me. I talked about it all the time,” recalls Justine Lafortune. The increase in tuition fees “directly affected what we wanted to become,” explains the one who was then in fifth secondary and who attended a school in a disadvantaged neighborhood of Montreal.

A committed activist, the young woman took part in all kinds of protests in the spring of 2012. “More aggressive demonstrations, others hyper peaceful, others passive…”, she lists. In his eyes, the naked demonstrations were part of this exploration aimed at finding “how one can make one’s voice heard”.

Vulnerability and non-violence

What was the atmosphere like in this crowd of naked strikers? “It was super different. […] I noticed that energetically, it was not the same thing, ”says Justine Lafortune.

“It’s a way that experimented a lot with non-violence,” she continues.

During these naked demonstrations, the students placed themselves in a state of “extreme vulnerability”, underlines the feminist essayist Martine Delvaux. “It was as if they were saying: ‘We are here in front of you and we are defenseless’”, she summarizes.

Beyond the symbol, the naked bodies of male and female students have especially attracted attention. “It always strikes the imagination, a naked demonstration, whatever the cause, it’s one of the reasons they are made. […] It’s really silly, but nudity will attract, ”said Martine Delvaux.

Nudity, weapon of the Femen

The maple spring strikers are not the only ones to have resorted to nudity to convey their message. In recent years, the Femen have used their bare breasts as a highly publicized political weapon to defend women’s rights and denounce patriarchy.

“What’s interesting about the gesture they pose is that they say: ‘You see, the naked girls from the advertising posters are taking to the streets. You no longer have the right to the body in fine lingerie that will make you fantasize, you are in front of female warriors”, analyzes Martine Delvaux.

This reappropriation of the female body is one of the elements that attracted Neda Topaloski to the movement. “We are often told that it is really shocking that we are topless, but yet, I see naked women all the time, since I was very young and in all the sauces, but it is always in a context sexual,” she says.

Is it an effective weapon? “If we speak strictly at the level of the transmission of the message, I must admit that it turned out to be quite effective,” replies feminist sociologist Francine Descarries.

Neda Topaloski also says that at their beginnings in 2008, in Ukraine, the Femen made theatrical stagings as a form of protest for about two years. Results ? Little media coverage. Once their t-shirts were removed, “the whole world started to follow suit,” she says.

In the eyes of Francine Descarries, this weapon is however a double-edged sword. “I think it’s self-delusion to think that giving someone else what they want to watch is an effective weapon,” she says, although she admires “the courage and audacity of these young women.

“It’s not bad feminism, it’s feminism conceived and thought differently,” she says.

“When one is an activist, one uses a multiplicity of tactics. Nudity is one of the tactics, but it is not the only one,” concludes Martine Delvaux.

“Never easy, being naked in front of the whole world”

Do we get used to demonstrating bare breasts? “I’m often told that I have to be comfortable with my body, that for me, it’s easy. It’s never easy to be naked in front of the whole world. But someone has to do it. If it’s not me, who will it be? “says Neda Topaloski. The best-known figure of the Femen movement in Quebec has participated in many brilliant acts, notably on the sidelines of the Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2015, where she was arrested and cited for trial. “Demonstrating is unpleasant, it’s uncomfortable, we know that we are putting ourselves at risk. We know that there are a lot of dangers that will come. In this case, if I had been found guilty, I would have lost a lot of freedoms,” she says. Acquitted in 2017, she found the legal process long and exhausting. The Femen movement in Quebec has been less visible for a few years, but it is not dead for all that. “We’ll come back strong, don’t worry. »