Image sources – bodypolitics

Demonstrators hold signs while marching during a protest against Georgia’s “heartbeat” abortion bill in Atlanta on May 25, 2019. People gathered to protest the state’s recently passed House Bill 481, which would ban abortion after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat usually around the sixth week of pregnancy. (Ijah Nouvelage / Bloomberg via Getty Images). The bill would be seen as putting restrictions on a woman’s autonomy over her body, and demonstrators used the imagery of the uterus to signify that their bodies mean their choice.
A man wears a mask as he marches during the Millions March NYC on December 13, 2014 in New York (Don Emmert/ Getty Images). His mask signifies the suffocation he feels because of the racial injustice in his community.
School children participate in an awareness campaign organized to stop child marriage on ‘Akshaya Tritiya’ in Bikaner, Rajasthan, April 27, 2017. (IANS photo). Dressing up as child brides/grooms makes the situation much more visceral, and encourages viewers to imagine the horrific world of child marriage.
Photographer Kwame Brathwaite captures African American women embracing a new ideal of black female beauty in the civil rights era, 1966. Black women were excluded from showbiz and pop culture for much of the twentieth century, and this photograph serves as an ode to black models, proving that beauty comes in any skin color.
Filipino UST Senior High School students stage a “silent protest” on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018, to protest the continued implementation of the K-12 program under the Duterte administration. (Photo was taken from Anakbayan-UST’s Facebook page). The choice of dressing up in a box shows how they are treated as commodities to be traded rather than as people.
Witness photograph of protests in Brussels against the headscarf ban on July 7, 2020. Women in headscarves coming together in masses show the strength of the demonstration and the solidarity they feel with one another.
Artists perform on stage to mark International Women’s Day in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2018 (PakistanToday.com). Their choice to use the stage and their bodies as a tool for awareness rather than for entertainment highlights how uncomfortable and deplorable abuse can be.
Women raise their hands as they protest against gender violence and femicide in Puebla, Mexico, on February 22, 2020. (REUTERS/Imelda Medina). The choice of painting hands is interesting because hands are what women use to work and pave their lives with. Bloodied hands thus signify ruined lives.