By 
21-08-2024
Benedetta De Rosa
Women’s Rights Researcher,
Global Human Rights Defence.
In the entertainment world, control over the female body is a tangible reality dictated by patriarchy, which sanctions women who deviate from that label. Here, Italian pop star Elodie is a spokeswoman for dissent and resistance by reclaiming women’s right to decide how to show themselves without fear of judgement. In fact, she will be among the 12 protagonists of this year’s Pirelli Calendar, titled “Refresh and Renewal” and signed by renowned photographer Ethan James Green, which will celebrate the return of sensuality and nudity as an art form.
The singer is well-known in the Italian scene for using her physicality as an expressive tool, which is even sensual, often finding herself facing the venomous comments that accompany her public image. Between those who accuse her of undressing too much, belittling her skills as a performer, and those who do not believe that female empowerment may also come through choosing to self-represent herself as a sexual being, discrediting her feminist struggle, Elodie stresses that her body is her manifesto for freedom and self-determination, as well as a political tool. In numerous interviews with Italian newspapers, the singer recounted her experience as a calendar model, also openly challenging the contradiction and hypocrisy of society, which, while it pigeonholes female beauty into narrow moral boundaries, also exalts it according to its own dictated parameters. She declares, “women are not even free to walk around as they want, and they can only show some parts of their bodies. This is decided by other human beings, and it gives us a good understanding of how scabrous womanhood really still is. […]. So there is control over the woman’s body”. Then she continues: “they accuse me of sexualising [myself] [but] I would like to ask what that means. Instead, the point is exactly this: the more one is accused for the use one makes of one’s freedom […], the more it means that one is waging a fair struggle” (Di Grazia, 2024). Female nudity is a problem when it is being acted out and not undergone, as the system accepts the representation of the female body only when it is controlled and conforms to its own standards, when it is an instrument of control and not of free expression.
Criticisms against Elodie concern modesty and female imagery, both powerful tools through which the patriarchal structure exerts its control over women. Little girls and young women are taught from an early age that the body must not be shown and that one must behave and dress in a certain way to be considered respectable, which is the basic requirement for being perceived as desirable by the male universe. Essentially, from an early age, women are pushed to abide by a set of norms designed to please the male gender, including not showing their bodies too much.
The issues of female nudity and sensuality certainly have to do with how the representation of the female body has been functional in reinforcing gender hierarchy, but it also has to do with the freedom of women to freely show their bodies. A woman who voluntarily shows her body performs a revolutionary act, because she normalises the revelation of female sexuality in all its power and freedom and frees herself from all forms of control exercised over it.
Sources and further readings
Di Grazia I. (2024, 14 August). Elodie tra i talent del Calendario Pirelli: “Il corpo è il mio manifesto”. Il Mattino. Consulted on August 21st, 2024, from
Pace L. (2024, 14 August). Elodie, il suo Calendario Pirelli 2025 è un atto politico: “Avere una sessualità non è peccato”. Io DONNA. Consulted on August 21st, 2024, from
https://www.iodonna.it/attualita/2024/08/14/elodiecalendario-pirelli-2025-sessualita-non-e-peccato/
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