The Naked Feminist:
About Victoria Bateman
“Why do I appear naked? The reason is simple: society has a problem with women’s bodies, and I am here to fight back.
Experience has taught me that when I wear a smart and conservative formal suit, degree and doctorate in hand, I am taken seriously. But if I deviate from this, my appearance begins to matter more than my argument. Too low cut a top? Too short a skirt? Fabric a bit clingy or see-through? Then I become no more than meat - a body without a brain - open to criticism not for what I say, but for what I do or don’t wear. This is the problem all women face in their daily lives - the belief that respect for a woman is conditional on, above everything else, her bodily modesty.
This cult of female modesty has implications for women across the globe: it fuels practices such as virginity testing, female genital cutting, honour killings, child marriage, and the removal of women and girls from education or the workplace - all in order to supposedly “protect” them from being seen or touched, or as a form of punishment for those who have transgressed modesty boundaries. Whether in the West or further afield, women’s voices are ignored and devalued, they are treated without dignity or worth, and stripped of confidence, opportunity and power, all because society has conditioned all of us - men and woman alike - to act as judge, jury and executioner.
So I use my naked body to convey a simple message: the cult of female modesty must be broken, and only then will women be truly equal. Until then, expect to see (a lot) more of me.”
Born in Tameside, Greater Manchester, to a long line of cotton mill workers, Victoria’s youth shaped both her interest in economics and her ear for the voices of marginalised women. After a state school education in Oldham, Victoria went on to study Economics at the University of Cambridge, and subsequently earned her MSc and DPhil from the University of Oxford. In 2009, she returned to Cambridge as a Fellow in Economics, where she became Director of Studies in Economics at Gonville & Caius College.
Victoria has published extensively on economics, economic history and feminism, has written for Bloomberg, has appeared on the BBC and ITV, and has spoken at the Hay Festival, the Bradford Literary Festival, The Festival of Ideas, and The House of Literature (Oslo). Her previous books include The Sex Factor: How Women made the West Rich, and she is the resident economic historian on the BBC Radio 4 series “Understand: the economy”.
Aside from her writing and public speaking, Victoria is also known for using her body in art and protest to challenge the assumptions and stigma surrounding women’s bodies. Her naked portraits have been displayed at the Mall Galleries in London (2014 & 2019) and at Girton College, Cambridge, and she has delivered live naked performances on stage at Dartington Literary Festival, at the Cambridge Junction theatre and at Chester Diversity Festival - as well as making appearances on the topic of feminist economics at DEFRA and the ONS in nothing more than a handful of banknotes.
For further information on Victoria, see her website vnbateman.com.