University academic stages defiant naked protest

NUDITY WARNING

A British academic is going viral on Twitter after staging a naked protest.

Dr Victoria Bateman is an economic fellow at the University of Cambridge and a passionate feminist who’s built a name for herself by using nudity to draw attention to women’s rights.

Appearing in a recent video with the words, ‘My body my choice’ inked across her body, Dr Bateman argues that many of the restrictions women face in society have been brought about by the association of women’s bodies with sin.

“From foot binding, to female genital mutilation, from restrictions on women’s ability to work, to restrictions on their travel – what’s the common factor behind all of those historic and current limitations on women’s freedom across the world?” she asks.

“One factor; the association of women’s bodies with sin, something that results in society’s desire to mutilate them, to cover them up, to keep them within the home, to restrict women’s ability to work and travel. And how do we tackle that? Not by adding to it, but instead, by challenging it, and how do we do that? With the simple message, ‘my body, my choice.’”

Now, she’s applied that same form of protest to the Brexit debate, and it’s drawn the attention of many on Twitter, including outspoken commentator Piers Morgan, who confesses, “This may just have turned me into a Brexiteer.”

The stunt was a simple lecture Dr Bateman delivered nude, in which she discusses how Brexit leaves Britain naked.

“Britain has sold itself the emperor’s new clothes,” she argues. “Brexit leaves the British economy exposed, it has uncovered and fuelled dangerous anti-immigration sentiments, and laid bare the failures of past policy – failures that mean that too many people believe they have nothing to lose from Brexit simply because they have nothing at all.”

Along with the lecture, Dr Bateman also turned her body into a “people’s petition” where people signed their names on her skin.

Her lecture has clocked up close to a million views on Twitter, and Dr Bateman is quickly becoming known as the ‘naked professor’. We’re sure this isn’t the last we’ll hear from her.

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