Topless (Political) Woman

  Natalia Juarez teaches Philosophy at a university.

  She also would like to represent her people-

  But not without controversy.

 

The Congressional candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution stands in the middle amongst supporters.

According to CNN, " (The) caption above the women on the billboard reads: "I dare you to build a new project for a nation with no prejudices."

Juarez is quoted as saying, "Conservative people are never going to vote for me, never! Even if I dressed as a nun and carried a rosary and said that my party was going to give away Bibles and rosaries, they wouldn't. Conservatives are never going to vote for me."

   

Juarez, no doubt, stands without a t-shirt or without a bra in her billboard. The entire image is not that of a sexual one despite lack of clothes. One wonders if such outrage is over the nudity in this ad, or simply because of Juarez's bold ideas, which she isn't afraid to vocalize: "When it comes to drugs and the violence generated by drug trafficking, we need to start thinking in a radical way. What do I mean by that? Well, we need to start a debate. Let's legalize (drugs), tax them and use the money for other things". In Guadalajara, where Juarez hails from, "(there) has seen a sharp rise in drug-related violence over the past twelve months, including isolated incidents of grenade attacks. In early February 2011, a series of road blockades were set up in various sections of the Guadalajara metropolitan area, including the main highway between Guadalajara and the international airport" (Foreign and Commonwealth Office UK). The United States can be also responsible for such drug-related violence and deaths due to its own restrictive laws, which leads to more transactions in the black market.

Before completely taking on issues from a first-hand occupational standpoint, however, Juarez's image is still causing superficial controversy. But in a land (such as the United States) wear many violent movies are merely Rated R and sometimes PG-13 while movies containing sex and nudity are prone being easily NC-17, maybe we can open our eyes more and see what strong messages she is trying to convey without easily judging a book by its cover... and its billboard.

*Picture of Billboard taken from The Huffington Post.