Protesting with Breasts: Aluta Breastalia? [With Photos]

By now you might have heard the news of the topless female activist group called ‘Femen’ that stormed the Hanover trade fair in Germany which Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting on Monday along with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The women were there to protest the unfair jailing of feminist punk band, P***y Riot (Haba…see name!).

Activist lady with liver bares it all. Check out everyone's faces.

It’s not the first instant of such protests by women believed to belong to the ‘Femen’ group (Abeg, what kind of name is that – ‘Femen’? A hybridization of ‘Female’ and ‘Semen’?). They have done this in many places in different countries. I guess that says that they must have some sort of strong network. But that would probably be across Europe and America.

Topless activists = Pointless agenda?

Definitely not in Nigeria.  

Okay, there have actually been some cases but most of the time it involved indigenous old women and it had some fetish juju or traditional affiliation like we had in Ekiti and Ogun state some time ago. I have never heard of Nigerian ladies stripping half naked to protest.

Old mamas in Ekiti do the topless protest accompanied by traditional rites

There was a report that during the protest by UNILAG students on the decision to change the school’s name to MAULAG, some students protested half naked but that was just a story concocted over a photo that caught a pair of half-naked girls peeping at the protest from a hall of residence.  No student would ever dare let out her tatas to protest because they know very well that the objective would backfire on them.

Femen activists - voyeuristic photographers' dream come true.

But seriously…has this kind of boob-baring public protest ever worked? What is the sense in it? Ever since feminists started burning their bras, they seem to have also burned common sense along with it. No wonder womanists make more sense than them.

I’ve actually wondered what the aim of such so-called activists is. As a student back in the higher Institution, I’ve seen what it means to embark on a protest; those aggressive Aluta demonstrations were for a cause or the other. There were some actions and boycotts that were embarked on to enable the authority at hand to give in to their demands.

But how on earth is someone supposed to want to change his or her mind because some ladies decide to do an angry/aggressive strip tease before them? Does that turn out to be some sort of intimidation I don’t know about?

Take a look at the Vladimir Putin scenario as captured by this photographer.

Stupid lady made Putin's day instead of ruining it.

Check out Putin’s face, you can see that he was rather amused and entertained than harassed. According to reports, Putin had said he liked watching the pretty chicks show off their valuables. He later sarcastically thanked the women for calling the news media's attention to the gathering. The women, three in number, had found their way to the front of the president's entourage and stripped half naked before him shouting expletives full of F-words. Putin did not understand jack from all the mumbo jumbo they were saying. He just enjoyed the show.

Hahaha…just look at his face…Putin the Presidential Perv.