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By now all of you have heard of the Occupy Wall Street movement (I hope), but have you heard of the “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street: The Sexy Side of Protesting Corruption“‘?
As the story goes, two dudes were hanging out together watching some Occupy Wall Street footage and noticing all the hot chick protesters. Steven Greenstreet told his friend: “Wow, seeing all those super smart hot chicks at the protest makes me want to be there.” He replied, “Hmmm… Yeah, let’s go with that.” And “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” was born.
Of course, as you can imagine, the feminist-o-sphere has been up in arms over this new Tumblr sensation calling it sexist bullshit. Prompting Rebecca Traister to say: The larger, simpler argument, outside of consent or permission, is: This video is sexist. It’s an example of women participating in public life — political, professional, social — and having their participation reduced to sexual objectification. That’s what happened here, nothing more, nothing less.”
I hadn’t even watched the video and I agreed with her, but then I actually checked out the site and the vid and came through it all with a different opinion. The woman portrayed in the video are certainly beautiful, but the context isn’t sexualized (sorry fellow pervs) and the idea behind it all is actually kind of moving.
It certainly helped to read Steve’s defense: “Apparently a lot of controversy has erupted online from people passionately opining (among many things) that this is sexist, offensive, and dangerously objectifies women. It was not my intent to do that and I think the spirit of the video, and the voices within, are honorable and inspiring.” Read more here.
If you check out the “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” Tumblr you will see lots of pics of pretty protesters – of ranging style, age, and race – as well as be able to read relevant commentary. Besides the “OMG this is sexist” hysteria, you’ll get to read a note sent to Steve from the Egyptian face painter portrayed in the video who wanted to thank the dudes behind the video for “capturing the feminine side of the story.” Read more here.
The best comment, by far, came from the mother of one of the “Hot Chicks”: “What is striking to me is the title and then the resulting seriousness and complexity of the protesters. Anyone watching does not doubt for a minute that these people are intelligent, thoughtful and powerful. I am hopeful this movement will spawn a few good candidates, and some standards to hold those who represent us to account. Thank you Steve, my daughter looks beautiful here and strong as she most certainly is.” (Emphasis mine) Read more here.
That should put an end to all the arguing, because as we all know mother knows best!
The video that started it all:
Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street from Steven Greenstreet on Vimeo.
Click on images for larger versions:
Via hotchicksofoccupywallstreet.tumblr.com
