Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Feminism becomes more like Islamism every day

Here’s a tip for political activists: if your rabble-rousing echoes the behaviour and ideas of Islamists, then you’re doing something wrong. Consider the Protein World advert which — clutch my pearls! — features a photo of a beautiful, svelte woman in a bikini next to the question: ‘Are you beach body ready?’ Angry women, and probably some men, have been writing outraged slogans on these posters, scribbling on the poor model’s face and body, seemingly blissfully unaware that they’re following in the footsteps of intolerant Islamic agitators.

In 2011, Muslims in Birmingham used black spraypaint to deface an ad for H&M featuring a woman in a yellow bikini. They were reportedly ‘offended by her flesh’. In 2013, a gang calling itself Muslim Patrol ripped down adverts for a super push-up bra, and spray-painted over others, claiming the ads offended their sensibilities. Now, in 2015, another semi-clad woman appearing on bus-stops and at train stations finds herself being scrawled on by graffiti-artists-cum-censors — only this time the offended felt-tip pen-wielders aren’t Islamists; they’re feminists.

The advert at a tube station

The advert at a tube station

The response to the Protein World poster has been bonkers, even by the standards of this era of offence-taking and PC intolerance. Feminists have taken it upon themselves to deface the ads, because they claim that the question ‘Are you beach body ready?’ body-shames the plump and makes normal-sized women feel bad about themselves. At Liverpool Street Station someone has scribbled over the model’s face and cleavage — cover her up! — and written the words ‘NOT OKAY’, which, alongside ‘That’s inappropriate’, is the most grating of the schoolmarmish phrases peddled by the PC mob. It basically means, ‘I think this isn’t okay, and because I am so incredibly important that means you shouldn’t be allowed to see it either’.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in