San Francisco Chronicle - May 23, 2004
Axis of Eve is just beating around the Bush
Lizzy Ratner
Elizabeth Eve never thought of herself as an exhibitionist. But these days, the 33-year-old history professor with the gold nose ring can barely contain the urge to lift her skirt and flash her skivvies.
"There is something so liberating and exciting about it, you've got to try it out," she said recently as she fidgeted, fully clothed, on the couch in her friend Tasha's Manhattan apartment. "I was teaching a class on imperialism, " she continued, "and I was delivering all this material that was kind of new and upsetting, and everyone was getting all worked up and upset, and I was getting all worked up and upset, and all of a sudden, all I wanted to do was flash my underwear! It was crazy," she said with a throaty giggle.
That's because she wasn't wearing just any panties. Elizabeth is part of Axis of Eve, a fledgling group of rabble-rousing feminists and anti-war activists who have taken to flashing their undies as a form of political dissent. The Eves, as they call themselves, are on a mission to sex up protest. They take to the streets wearing "protest panties" which come emblazoned with anti-Dubya double-entendres like "Expose Bush," "Lick Bush," "Give Bush the Finger" and "Drill Bush Not Oil." When the Eves flash them at rallies, the effect is somewhere between a 1970s' love-in and George Bush's worst, frat- addled nightmare of a panty raid gone awry.
"The panties have this way of just mobilizing, energizing, inspiring," said Tasha Eve, a cultural anthropologist who co-founded the Axis with one of her best high-school buddies, Zazel Eve (as an act of sisterly solidarity, Axis members all use the last name Eve when they are in Axis mode).
Tasha, who is 33, was presiding over a late-night panty powwow with Zazel and Elizabeth. As Elizabeth perched on Tasha's couch, Zazel sprawled on the floor in a cream-colored body suit and lavender "Lick Bush" thong. "I think sometimes verbal discourse is insufficient as a mode of expression," Tasha said, as if she were delivering a lecture for her fellowship at a prominent New York university. "There's something raw and wonderful and gratifying about the more gestural expression of the flash. By putting on these bold, outrageous displays, we want to inspire others to also be bold."
Boldness, of course, has its limits. Though they're willing to strip down to a string in front of a crowd of hundreds, they're not yet willing to go fully public by using their full names. "We're in this double-bind, because we're engaged in this campaign of exposure, but we can't expose ourselves," said Elizabeth. "I mean, I'm a college professor. Can you imagine what the mothers would be like? 'No, you can't teach our daughters!' "
Tasha and Zazel began plotting the Axis of Eve in late January, exactly two years after George W. Bush famously branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the pivotal points of another Axis. The two women had been feeling angry about the "dishonesty of the Bush administration" and frustrated by the "dominance of the family-values discourse," Tasha said. Their solution: "Expose Bush" -- literally and figuratively. "At first we were worried a little bit about having Bush down there, because a lot of us hate him so much," said Zazel. "But now, when I have to go into my corporate job as a photo editor, it makes me happy to have them on, because I have to assume a certain persona there."
"The panties were very efficacious in shifting Zazel's mood," added Tasha. "They're spirit-lifting."
Throughout the winter and early spring, Tasha and Zazel worked to "spread the panty word." They launched a Web site (www.axisofeve.org), developed their own "panty lexicon" (replete with terms like "pantiology" and "pantificate") and set up a nonprofit group, Daughters of Eve, so that proceeds from their sales could go toward a voter-mobilization video called "Take Back the Vote" that Zazel is working on with the NAACP and ACLU.
And they became walking billboards for their panties, traipsing to every lefty bash and book party in their thongs and fishnets in an effort to hawk their wares. The elastic really began to snap when Tasha, Zazel, Elizabeth and their fourth core member, Caitlin, went to Washington with a troupe of Eves for the April 25 March for Women's Lives. Wearing their signature undies under frilly spring skirts, they installed themselves at a strategic spot outside the Mall and began to flash. With each flick of their skirts, they would chant: "The panty line has been drawn! Which side are you on?" They needn't have asked.
"It was like Century 21 on a bad day," said Zazel, describing the frenzy as marchers jostled for a pair of $10 panties. "It really turned into this contagious panty fever," said Tasha. "Three of us were taking orders, and it would be like, 'OK, can I please have two mediums in a "Lick Bush," a large "Weapon of Mass Seduction" and a small "Down on Bush"?' We sold out our entire inventory in one hour." Even the SWAT team laughed.
The Republican National Convention -- which the Eves described bitterly, and biblically, as "when the snake comes to the Garden" -- will be a prime panty-flashing opportunity. The Eves are plotting a racy panty performance for Sept. 1 featuring 100 women dressed in white trench coats and their signature matching panties. "At 3 p.m.," the Axis Web site advertises, "Eves will perform a group flashing in order to create a media spectacle and send a political postcard: We will not tolerate lies and cover-ups!"
"Sometimes we do wonder, 'Is this weird? Is this a turn-on or a turn- off?' " said Elizabeth, shifting again on Tasha's couch. "But universally, it seems to be a turn-on. So many people are drawn to us." Except for one group of hold-outs: "We haven't sold any panties to Republicans," Tasha admitted. "I guess we haven't converted anyone yet."
In any case, the Axis has been doing a brisk business. The most popular model by far, said Tasha, is "Give Bush the Finger." And they've also designed panties for first-time voters that read "My Cherry for Kerry." "We think Kerry needs a little help in the sex-appeal department," said Tasha. Elizabeth and Zazel nodded vigorously.
Lizzy Ratner writes for the New York Observer, where a version of this piece first appeared.