Photo Credit: 99flaner
Note: we are republishing this story which originally made the news in February 2019.
A Cambridge lecturer has received a barrage of abuse after she went nude on live TV to make a political statement.
Dr. Victoria Bateman, an economics fellow from Gonville and Caius College, took her clothes off during an interview on Good Morning Britain to reveal the anti-Brexit message written across her breasts. This stunt comes just days after she stripped out of her clothes during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today show.
During the interview, Bateman called Brexit the “the emperor’s new clothes,” stating that the pro-Leave campaigners have promised the country something that is “just not possible to deliver.”
Photo Credit: Twitter/Patsy Murrell
When asked whether she was an “exhibitionist,” Bateman responded: “Why should I as a woman only be able to use my body for sex and babies? Why shouldn’t I also be able to use my body to deliver an important political message?”
She stated that the only shocking about her nudity was that, unlike the women in pornography, she has a voice.
Bateman first made headlines five years ago after posing nude for a portrait displayed at a Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London.
Since then she has gone nude at a number of events, including a university function last summer where she dressed in a transparent leotard and evening shoes. Weeks later, she posted a video on Twitter in which she had covered “her modesty with only a handful of £5 and £20 notes,” the Daily Mail reported.
Photo Credit: Twitter/TomSelby
In the viral Twitter video, Bateman stated that she had been at a conference at the Office of National Statistics, where she’d spoken on the topic “feminism meets economics.”
Speaking about her outfit at the conference, which was made up of just the bank notes, Bateman stated that it was a “fitting combination of feminist and economic symbolism.”
She tweeted that feminism in economics is vital to create a more “prosperous, equitable and sustainable economy.”
Through her nudity, Bateman aims to make “the female presence felt in a clear and powerful way” and to challenge the premise that women’s naked flesh is sinful or shameful, she explained.
She stated that she receives a lot of verbal abuse on Twitter because of her naked protests, from both men and women. However, she argues that comments such as “put it away love” and “get a razor” just prove her point.
Photo Credit: Twitter/IGSChester
She told the Pluralist in July: “I believe that fundamentally every woman should be free to do what she wants with her own body – whether to cover or uncover, to control her fertility or not, to be a homemaker or to pursue a career, and to monetize her brain or her body.”
“‘My body, my choice’ should be the mantra for everyone. It sounds simple enough, but, increasingly, it’s a phrase from which people tend to pick and choose – to pick aspects that are important to them personally while ignoring those that are equally important to other women,” she added.
Others have defended Bateman’s actions, with one Twitter user writing: “Sad that there are so many haters out there, that so many men and women alike are afraid of what a real woman looks like.”
Sources: The Week
