A London born movement is heading to Toronto with an agenda to make some heads turn. Laura Robinson, creator of the movement #DontBanMyBody is a local photographer and activist for body freedom.
Robinson started the movement with shooting semi-nude photographs of diverse topless women with tape over their areoles.
Robinson says herself, and other photographers and artists have had their work reported and removed due to breeching Facebook’s policies. She has been banned from her account and pages multiple times for posting what Facebook claims as “nudity” and “sexual activity”.
Credit: Pfeffer Photography
“We are asking Facebook to re-evaluate how their policies are written and enforced as they did with #freethenipple. That campaign successfully prompted Facebook to allow breastfeeding and mastectomy photos, but even those are removed from the site. Regardless, women’s breasts shouldn’t need a child feeding or a diagnosis of cancer to be deemed inoffensive.” Robinson posts on her Facebook page.
#FreeTheNipple is a campaign that argues women should be allowed to show their nipples in public. The movement has been around since 2012, created by filmmaker Lina Esco who launched the movement targeting sexist public nudity laws.
Credit: Frank Piccolo
Robinson hopes that #DontBanMyBody will acquire as much attention as #FreetheNipple in order to get one step closer to making a change and raising awareness. “I don’t anticipate that Facebook is actually going to come down and say ‘hey come in for a sit-down’, if anything I’m anticipating we will be escorted off the premises. But we are hoping for some media coverage to get attention” she says.
Robinson says she’s hoping to have at least 100 topless woman take part, who are either fully topless or topless with there nipples covered with tape. The protest will be happening at Facebooks headcounters in Toronto November 19th at 2pm.
Because my breasts are not sex objects. Because I am not a sex object. #dontbanmybody #freethenipple
— Laura Robinson (@Arborized) October 7, 2016
If you are interested in taking part of #DontBanMyBody’s protest, you can get in touch with Robinson on her Facebook, or email her at laura.arbourized@gmail.com.
