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 Posted - 01/26/2003 : 10:03:54 AM
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Point Reyes Light - November 14, 2002
West Marin women strip for peace
MAKING THEIR BODIES FIGURES OF SPEECH – West Marin women are serious enough about PEACE to spell it out. Wearing nothing but afternoon rain, 50 determined women lay down on Love Field near the Green Bridge Tuesday afternoon to literally embody PEACE and "show solidarity with the people of Iraq," said the organizers. "Women from all ages and walks of life took off their clothes, not because they are exhibitionists but because they felt it was imperative to do so," the organizers added. "They wanted to unveil the truth about the horrors of war, to commune in their nudity with the vulnerability of Iraqi innocents, and to shock a seemingly indifferent Bush Administration into paying attention." The coordinators, who came up with the idea only a day earlier, said that the coming together of this group on short notice was a testament to the seriousness with which the women view the threat of war with Iraq. "Remembering that tens of thousands of civilians have already died in Iraq as a result of US bombing and sanctions, these women are not convinced by Bush Administration fear mongering that one more person should die," organizers said. They hope the president and news media take notice. (Photo by Art Rogers ©2002 Pt. Reyes)
Point Reyes Light - November 14, 2002
West Marin women strip for peace
By Ivan Gale
West Marin women bared their bodies on Tuesday in Point Reyes Station for a photo protesting America's plans for armed conflict with Iraq.
Participants using solely their bodies spelled out ‘PEACE" as a light rain fell.
Portrait photographer and Light correspondent Art Rogers captured the moment from high atop a ladder using a homemade tripod standing about 15-feet above Love Field near the Green Bridge.
Participant Cynthia Clarkson of Point Reyes Station told The Light she hoped the photo will have a strong impact in America and abroad.
"I’m hoping it gets distributed so that the message gets across that women in America want peace," said Clarkson. "I want to do everything I can to stop the war that’s impending."
Marshall resident Donna Sheehan, who organized the group called "Unreasonable Women" for the photo, said she’s been pondering for four years a way women can "be heard on a very deep level."
Decades since last protest
Other participants said it had been decades, in many cases since the 1960s, since they’ve been in a protest.
Sheehan said the group first got the idea from a similar protest in Nigeria this past year. Sheehan said women fighting corporate exploitation stood nude in a vigil that lasted several days outside of Nigeria’s parliament.
"[The Nigerian women] shamed the men and won their cause," she said.
As the women circled together and readied for their cause Sheehan lauded the group for showing their courage. "Would you be willing to stand [naked] in front of the White House?" Sheehan said amidst cheers from the participants.
Making peace
"America is destroying the world in its pursuit of resources," said Melinda Leithold. "It’s thoughtless and feelingless."
As the women anxiously eyed gathering rainclouds, photographer Rogers moved them into position, posing each from his perch atop his ladder.
Afterward, organizer Sheehan said the day had proved to be a beautiful and powerful experience for all involved. "I think it’s going to a make a mark in the political and art world," she sa
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 Posted - 01/26/2003 : 11:35:01 AM
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Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2003
A Naked Plea for Peace Gets Legs as Protest Draws Imitators
Northern California women bare all in their opposition to war with Iraq
By Carol Pogash, Special to The Times
MARSHALL, Calif. -- In this quiet community, better known for succulent Tomales Bay oysters than irate protesters, Donna Sheehan couldn't imagine what she alone could do. The statuesque 72-year-old with large feet and larger ambition wanted to protest looming war with Iraq.
But living in this rural Marin County hamlet of 50 — or 51 if you believe the hand-painted correction on a California 1 sign — she knew she had to be creative. Then in November, it came to Sheehan in a dream.
The artist envisioned naked bodies and swatches of color and, on waking, she recalled the Nigerian women who threatened to disrobe last year to protest the lack of jobs and services offered by a Chevron-Texaco plant in their homeland. It was that moment that crystallized Sheehan's thoughts, conceiving a protest that swept her county and then, hopscotched to locales as far away as England.
First she began recruiting in her backyard. While hiking at a local dog park with neighbor Bonnie Clark and her oversized dog Gaia, she inquired, "What would you think of having 100 naked women lying down in a field, spelling out the word 'Peace?' "
Clark was stunned. The onetime health educator turned "life coach" was only getting to know her new neighbor and this off-the-wall form of protest didn't make her feel terribly comfortable.
"Would you like to do it?" Sheehan said. Clark responded with a swift, "No."
But then she went home, talked to her husband and reconsidered: Writing her senator, she was sure, would produce only a form-letter response.
"A phone call to the White House? Like somebody really listens?" thought the naturally shy 55-year-old. "Adding my name to an e-mail petition? It's just too easy."
Disrobing, she decided, would outdo the normally "predictable, mechanized, boring" protests of today and let her express her "outrage" at the prospect of war.
And so it was that Clark became one of the early recruits for the self-described "Unreasonable Women of West Marin."
She and the others took their first stand or, more accurately, repose, on a misty, cold day at Love Field — a soggy baseball diamond in the Marin community of Point Reyes.
Art Rogers, chronicler of several generations of families and businesses on the Point Reyes peninsula, photographed the 50 women, mostly in their 50s, who lay in the grass and spelled out "Peace." Sheehan stretched out at the bottom of the letter "A," her long, bony feet protruding. Another of the unreasonable 50, white-haired Kimmy Johnson, a professor of gender conflict and other liberal subjects, said: "This is all I have to offer. We become more visible by becoming more exposed." She said the best way to get attention for the antiwar cause was to bare it all.
The community responded with enthusiasm. Sheehan helped organize additional photo sessions. There was a "No War" spell-out on a verdant Marin hillside and another nude "Peace" spell-out, this one on the wet sand of Drakes Beach on the Point Reyes Peninsula. The Point Reyes Light newspaper made the women's original in-the-buff display its centerfold.
For locals familiar with publisher Dave Mitchell's musings, that was hardly surprising. Mitchell has been known to frequent nude beaches and write about his encounters, including conversations while sunning with Pentagon Papers activist Daniel Ellsberg.
"We're a fairly carefree community," Mitchell said.
Shortly after the photo was published, Mitchell attended a gathering at the olive ranch of Nan McEvoy, former publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle. Seated at a table full of ranchers, Mi
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Posted - 01/26/2003 : 12:41:17 PM
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From the S. F. Heart
Sunday, January 12, 2003
A CHEEKY PROTEST
Bay Area anti-war activists go nude in surge of creative vigils
By Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
NUDE WOMEN PROTEST WAR
Ninety-four mostly West Marin women on Sunday used their naked bodies to spell out PEACE on Drake’s Beach. Fifty women mounted a similar demonstration in Point Reyes Station Nov. 12. This time 24 men also demonstrated in the buff, creating a large peace symbol on the beach. Organizer Donna Sheehan of Marshall said the demonstrations were a "precursor to the mass naked demonstrations in San Francisco and Washington, DC, on Jan. 18." Sheehan said she expects "about 100,000 people – men and women – to disrobe for Peace" at that time. Sunday’s female protesters expressed the "desperation of women" opposed to the Bush Administration’s plans for war with Iraq. Sheehan said, adding that the men by forming the international peace symbol were showing "solidarity with the women against global domination and war." (Photo of women by Jan Watson.)
Drakes Beach, CA.
Drake's Beach, Marin Co, January 2003
January 3, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NUDE WOMEN PROTEST WAR AGAIN
On December 29th, between storms, on a rocky, wet Pacific Ocean beach, over 100 women got naked again to protest America’s policy of naked aggression. This event is a precursor of what is to come.
"We are inviting 100,000 women (and men) to strip on January 18 in Washington DC and San Francisco for the huge National Peace March in protest of the stripping of Constitutional rights by a government intent on war," said Donna Sheehan, an Unreasonable Woman Baring Witness, in Pt. Reyes, California. "Our message to women all over the world, is be bold, be courageous, be vulnerable for Peace."
"The US government does NOT represent the average American women who care about the sacrificing of husbands, sons, brothers, and lovers. We are the life and care givers. There is an old Russian saying, "Every bullet finds its target in a Mothers heart," Sheehan quoted. "We are feeling agony and frustration. At this time in history, WE WILL BE HEARD."
The women are extraordinary ordinary people. They are Democrats, Republicans, librarians, attorneys, waitresses, therapists, artists, from 19 years old to 70-somethings. They are as uncomfortable as anyone else at making themselves vulnerable in this way, yet they are willing to do so, because peace and justice are the cornerstones of a sustainable society. They are willing to do so, because they can imagine a future for peace, in which non-violent resolution is the norm, and the habit of war has been broken. So powerful is the message that similar actions, naked and clothed, have taken place in Bolinas, CA, Santa Cruz, CA, Gainesville, Fl, Missoula, Mt and New York City, with more to come.
The photograph and an article appeared in the Point Reyes Light weekly newspaper.
Tax-deductible donations to
Baring Witness can be sent to P.O. Box 753, Marshall, CA 94940.
Oceana Taicher removes her shirt yesterday
at the start of a nude anti-war protest at the
Borello Ranch in Pt. Reyes. Photo: Jeff Vendsel
For more on this story,visit
http://www.marinij.com/news/stories/news4002552.shtml
Florida Men Strip for Peace
by FSN • Saturday December 28, 2002 at 08:52 AM
On December 21,2002, near Gainesville, Florida, 22 men posed naked to send a stunnin
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Posted - 02/11/2003 : 08:23:33 AM
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Yahoo! News - February 11, 2003
750 Women Lie Nude On A Hillside In Australia
Sat Feb 8, 1:22 AM ET
More than 750 women lie nude on a hillside at Byron Bayon, on the New South Wales north coast about 200 km (124 miles) south of Brisbane, in the shape of a heart with 'no war' spelled inside on February 8, 2003. The women are urging Australian Prime Minister John Howard not to follow U.S. President George Bush into a war with Iraq.
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Posted - 03/05/2003 : 12:27:26 PM
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smh.com.au - March 3, 2003
Latest Bulletin On The Morning Nudes
By Claire O'Rourke
Sleepy-eyed and hair askew, women arrived at Leichhardt Oval yesterday morning to join a global wave of nude protests for peace.
The smart ones turned up at 8am in cosy dressing gowns - and running shoes - while others defied the 14 degree autumn morning and wore sarongs.
By 9.45am, 300 women had formed the words "No war" on the playing field and helicopters flew over to take pictures.
The singer Grace Knight , who organised a similar protest of 750 women near Byron Bay last month, said the action was a simple way for ordinary people to express their opposition to the war in Iraq.
"We're not doing this to draw attention to us; we're doing it to draw attention to the fact that we don't believe war is the solution.
"As a woman and a mother and a non-political person, morally I find this offensive."
The first protest in the United States in November has prompted similar events around the world.
Anne, 69, of Leichhardt, said the action was "partly fun and partly solidarity", and the strength of feeling was shown by the wide range of ages present.
"I think it's a fabricated, immoral war," she said.
A stiff south-westerly breeze made the hovering media shiver outside the sealed gates, but judging by the cheers drifting from the oval the women inside barely noticed.
Afterwards, Kate, 26, of Newtown, strode out nude from the waist up, hands held high.
"I guess if we can approach it in a way that's liberating and a bit of fun, the whole thing isn't too depressing. At least there's been peace in there for half an hour."
[Admin's note]: If anyone has a photo of this formation, please send it to admin@nudist-resorts.org for inclusion on this page.
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 Posted - 04/20/2006 : 5:41:12 PM
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 I just love this pic. I would of loved to been part of this. Where is West Marion? Peace
Lady Di
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Cheri
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Posted - 04/20/2006 : 6:45:35 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by smyle
I just love this pic. I would of loved to been part of this. Where is West Marion? Peace
Lady Di
One of the demonstrations was in New South Wales, the other in Africa according to the stories above.
Cheri
Doing what I can to positively promote nudism
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Paul1011
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Posted - 04/20/2006 : 7:54:25 PM
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The "West Marin" in the first article is on the beach (Point Reyes) a little north of San Francisco. The movement to promote peace with is worthwhile and hopefully effective.
Paul1011
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Captain Curmudgeon
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Captain Curmudgeon
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Posted - 04/21/2006 : 11:42:53 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul1011
The movement to promote peace with is worthwhile and hopefully effective.
Maybe. I'm in this one:
Maybe it's time for a new round.
Naturally,
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jim19452
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Posted - 04/22/2006 : 10:03:22 AM
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It will be along time before somewhat accurate numbers can be estimated but it seems that Saddam Hussein had about 300,000 of his own countrymen killed during his rule. It has been reliably estimated that ethnic warfare in the 90s in central Africa killed roughly one million, many hacked to death with machetes. This was known early on by William Clinton and Kofi Anan neither of whom took any effective action to stop the slaughter. Doing so would not have enriched them nor made them more popular. End of story.
Where were the demonstrations against such murders in Marin, Australia and elsewhere? The lack thereof indicates not love for the life of others but rather the hatred of America and/or George Bush who did take action. Most Iraqis welcomed the US invasion, want to get on with their lives in a freer society, and for the US troops to ultimately leave.
I and another person had a post removed because the post gave only one side of a story and therefore was spam. This is a pathetic invasion of freedom of speech by someone who clearly has an hypocritical double standard. Proof of this is simple, read the posts on this topic.
Jim
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balataf
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Posted - 06/04/2006 : 03:13:10 AM
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I do not see how these women's actions will stop or even be noticed by the suicide bombers and others who have killed so many innocent Iraqis. Why not have some action aimed at the guilty, instead of against the forces working for a democratic and modern society?
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old hippie
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Posted - 06/04/2006 : 4:46:35 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by balataf
I do not see how these women's actions will stop or even be noticed by the suicide bombers and others who have killed so many innocent Iraqis. Why not have some action aimed at the guilty, instead of against the forces working for a democratic and modern society?
I don't think these actions were intended to influence the suicide bombers, who seem to have no ability to make their own decisions anyhow. These demonstrations appear more to be aimed at the Western customers of mass media. As a means of creating public attention, there seems to be nothing better than getting a fairly large number of people together, doing SOMETHING, whether it is juggling penguins or disrobing and forming an image.
Despite the inference drawn by some, this is neither an intrinsically anti-American action, nor an example of Bush-bashing. The NewZealand groups are not commenting on American politics; the US groups are trying to direct the actions of their elected government, as is their right (and duty); I don't claim to be able to explain anything the Brits do.
Merely the fact that the nudity draws such attention, should be the basis for some to comment. We might wish for a society in which ten or fifty citizens waltzing naked down Main St. would create no notice at all by the news reporters.
that old Hippie
Dum vivimus, vivamus!
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West Marin women strip for peace - see photo
