Are these women protesting against monogamy in Finland, as suggested?

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Claim: Women in Finland protested with bare breasts against men who marry only one wife as the female population soared. 

Verdict: False! In contrast to the claim, the women in the video were protesting the hypersexualisation of their bodies while demanding the right to protect their bodies. It has nothing to do with men. The video was taken out of context due to the language barrier. 

Full Text

Social media is awash with various narratives against women. Sometimes, these narratives are often fuelled by misogynistic beliefs and misconceptions. Particularly in African societies, women are traditionally expected to submit to their husbands or male figures, who could be even their younger relatives or sons. 

While women in developed countries fight to change these narratives, some social media users often twist the story to present men as superior, indispensable and cardinal to women’s survival. 

This appeared to be the case in a video shared recently by a social media user, @CadreShangri. 

The video featured some women who bared their breasts and carried placards with inscriptions written in French. The women were also heard speaking French. On the main banner carried by the women, it was written, “Non a l’hypersexualization. Liberons Les Tetons!”. 

To an uninformed person, this suggested something that has to do with either sex, intimacy or gender. 

The X user captioned the video, “Women in Finland protested against men marrying only one wife. They want the men to marry more than one wife as the population of women continues to soar in their country without husbands.”

The user added, “According to ZimStats, if every Zimbabwean man married one wife, there would still be 700,000 women without a partner! Food for thought!”

In a reply to the tweet, Cadre noted, “I’ve followed your thousands of comments and millions of reactions. Well, I see y’all angry about women expressing themselves. Anyway, what’s wrong if they were advocating for polygamy? Let the discussion begin.”

While DUBAWA could immediately ascertain the gender of the X user, the person appears to be in support of polygamy. 

As of the time of this report, the post has 5.7 million views, over 6,000 reposts and over 17,000 likes. While some users doubted the posts, others jokingly expressed interest in travelling to Finland to get a wife. 

Verification 

Since French is not one of the major languages of the Finnish people, DUBAWA wondered how the signboards on the street were written in French apart from the women’s chants. To this end, we decided to fact-check it. 

First, DUBAWA tried tracing the origin of the video using the INVID verification plug-in. We observed the video was posted on this website four years ago and updated a year ago. 

The caption only said, “We need to support this strike.” No other information regarding the origin or purpose of the protest was stated. 

Further findings showed that an X user posted screenshots from the original video on an untraceable Instagram account. 

While he wrote in the Persian language, the English translation reads, “It’s like, in Poland, people are protesting against adultery due to lack of sex, and it seems that no one can satisfy us. Does anyone know how to get a Polish visa?”

The tweet was made in Aug. 2021, while the Instagram video where the screenshots were taken was posted in July of the same year. 

DUBAWA observed the post had been particularly reshared multiple times in 2023 with different narratives. While some claimed the video was taken in Finland, others said the protesters were single ladies in Venezuela. Each post around the video claimed the women were protesting the decrease in the number of men in their countries to satisfy them. Others could be seen here and here. 

Meanwhile, DUBAWA made use of pointers in the video. The women were carrying placards, and on the main one, it was written, “Non a l’hypersexualization. Liberons Les Tetons!” which was detected as French. When translated to English, it means, “no to hypersexualisation, let’s free the nipples”.

Another placard read, “mon corps est sexuel sije veux politique sije veux couvert sije veux nu si je veux” which means, “my body is sexual if I want; political if I want; covered if I want; naked if I want.”

Other placards indicated the striving for equality of women’s rights over their bodies, especially the privates. Also, one of the women wore a cap that bore the feminist logo, and another had the logo on a placard. The logo is a clenched, raised fist combined with a Venus symbol. 

In the background, we observed the women protesting in a street filled with commercial activities. In one of the shops, the tags read “orthodontie” meaning orthodontics; “alignement dentaire et blanchiment” which, when translated is dental alignment and whitening. This shows the protest took place in a majorly French-speaking country. 

From our research, Finnish and Swedish are the major languages spoken in Finland, while Spanish is the major language spoken in Venezuela. This rules out the two countries, but could it be France?

A Google Reverse Image Search led to a 2019 tweet by @AndreaFlorence4, which showed the video had been captured during the nationwide protest by women against inequality in Switzerland. However, the X user only posted a photo from the exact scene. 

She wrote, “We protest so that we can be free to do whatever we want with our bodies. Feminism is revolutionary! 💜💜💜 #Grevefeministe #grevedesfemmes #grevefeministe2019”. 

Our search also led to a photography blog post which collated pictures from different scenes of protests across Switzerland on June 14, 2019. Photos of the topless women protesting the hypersexualisation of their bodies were included. 

Information from Google Earth identified the location where the video was captured as Rue de Chantepoulet, Geneva, Switzerland. While the result from Google Street View dates back to 2014, the Kress Optic poster, Le Plaza, and Air Mauritius signals show the video was captured on the street.

What was the protest all about?

With persistent gender inequality in Switzerland, as far back as 1991, about 4,000 women took to the streets to demand equal pay for equal work, a move that led to the approval of a Gender Equality Act five years later, which banned discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace. 

However, several years later, women in Switzerland were still paid 20% less than men for performing the same task, leading to a revolutionary movement in 2019. 

The organisers noted that the protest was to highlight discrimination in the workplace, including sexism, racism, and homophobia. 

Conclusion

The video did not show women protesting monogamy in Venezuela, Finland or Poland as claimed. Instead, it was a revolutionary protest by feminists seeking an end to the objectification of their bodies.