On Monday, we would all be wise to seek shelter: there is a massive Boobquake coming.
Boobs will be shaking and flying everywhere as over 160,000 women, at last count, have signed up on Facebook to show some skin in a light hearted protest against a recent comment by Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi. Sedighi on his weekly Friday address, said that the recent spike in earthquakes around the world were due in no small part to provocatively dressed women.
According to Sedighi, women who dress in a revealing and sexy fashion cause men to act like, well, men. And this behavior causes earthquakes. Hopefully that is all clear to my readers. Because that is what the man said.
In reaction, it seems a relatively little known blogger named Jen McCreight, a student at Purdue University, said on her blog that in oder to prove, or perhaps more accurately to disprove, the cleric’s belief, on Monday, April 26th she would dress in a more revealing fashion than she normally does. She encouraged women reading her blog to join her and created a Facebook group and event focused on getting women to participate. She playfully called the whole thing Boobquake.
Before she knew it, Boobquake became a national phenomenon. Not even a week old, over 160,000 women have joined the cause on the Boobquake group…and the number continues to rise. There is no telling how many women will have joined Boobquake by the time it takes effect on Monday morning. Some believe it could go as high as one million.
It’s important to note that the Boobquake movement is not dedicated to getting women to strip completely nude. As self described feminist, all McCreight is suggesting is that women dress more proactively than they normally would, though not beyond the point that they feel comfortable doing so. For her part, McCreight is going to wear a tanktop that shows off her assets without going too far.
So what is the end result of Boobquake? Will the message be sent loud and clear to the Iranian cleric and his followers that the way in which women dress have absolutely no effect on whether the earth’s tectonic plates shift and cause earthquakes? Or will they continue to believe that despite no earthquake occurring, somehow events have been set in motion that will result in an earthquake at some later date?
While it’s unlikely that Boobquake will cause people to change their mind about their religious leaders, it is a fun and harmless way for those who think the whole thing ludicrous to express themselves. While Jen McCreight may not have set out to create something this big, her idea has clearly caught on.
Source: New York Magazine Staff, “Boobquake to rock world on Monday”, nymag.com
