Boobquake

The Boobquake rally served to protest news reports of controversial beliefs espoused by Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi, an Islamic religious authority in Iran. Seddiqi blamed women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes. On April 19, 2010 it was reported that Seddiqi advised his listeners that "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes" and Iranians should "adapt their lives to Islam's moral codes" to avoid being "buried under the rubble".[1]

In response to Seddiqi's comments, a blogger named Jey McCreight invited people to dress "in your immodest clothing to represent Boobquake."[2] They described Boobquake as a scientific experiment: "With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble."[3]

McCreight's idea was popularized by prominent blogs and soon caught the attention of the international media. The event also drew criticism from people seeing it as objectifying women.[4] Following repeated inquiries from the BBC and other news agencies, McCreight planned two meetings for participants: one in West Lafayette, Indiana, and one in Washington, D.C.[5] Soon, what originated as "a humorous exercise in scientific and skeptical thinking"[6] had begun to ignite serious debate regarding the organization of the feminist community.

McCreight participating in Boobquake

The inpiration for this event was Jey McCreight,[7] who attributes their activism to reading Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion and attending a relatively religious college.[8] While working on their undergraduate degree they had co-founded the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue.[9][10]

One year prior to Boobquake, McCreight had begun keeping a blog in which they described themself as an atheist and a feminist.[11][12] On April 19, McCreight announced a protest against Seddiqi's comments on their blog, asking for participants to avoid "hateful or anti-Muslim or anti-Iranian messages".[13] In the week leading up to Boobquake, McCreight received several emails from "thankful skeptics, feminists, and Iranians".[5]

Organizers at the Dupont Circle Boobquake

An estimated total of 200,000 people participated in Boobquake on April 26, 2010.[11][14] The so-called "epicenter" of Boobquake was a light-hearted two-hour gathering at 1:00 pm at the Purdue Bell Tower in West Lafayette, Indiana. Participants' attire included push-up bras, unbuttoned shirts, short dresses, as well as other "racy costumes" and "risqué clothing". They also held signs with slogans such as "Cleavage for Science", "Amnesty", and "God hates Boobs". Purdue's student newspaper reported that the female participants were outnumbered by male spectators.[15]

Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle was the site of another gathering at noon. The Washington gathering was attended by a dozen[16] women and drew the attention of BBC Persia.[17]

Other notable gatherings were reported in New York City[18] and Vancouver.[11] In Vancouver, it was reported that most attendees at the event were hundreds of men using camera phones to take pictures, especially of a small number of women who were topless.[19]

Some people also supported the event by purchasing official "Boobquake 2010" T-shirts through Zazzle.com. The proceeds from the shirts went to the Red Cross, to benefit earthquake recovery, and to the James Randi Educational Foundation, to support critical thinking.[20]

That morning, at 02:59 UTC (April 25, 10:59 pm EDT – 14 hours before Boobquake Indiana; 13 hours before the Washington, DC event), a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck 195 miles off the coast of Taitung, Taiwan, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10.0 km). Upon hearing of this, McCreight said that it alone was not statistically significant, but that they would continue to monitor seismic activity for the next 24 hours. Other participants mentioned that the earthquake in Taiwan occurred prior to the official start of the experiment.[21]

After April 26 had ended in all time zones, McCreight began to conduct rigorous statistical analysis. McCreight pointed out that dozens of earthquakes occur daily, and that the goal of their analysis was not to see if all seismic activity would cease, but to determine whether the number or severity of earthquakes increased during the experiment. By compiling data from the USGS website, McCreight determined a 95% confidence interval of zero to 148 daily earthquakes. During the course of the Boobquake event, only 47 earthquakes were reported. They also calculated that an earthquake of the magnitude of that in Taiwan had a 37% chance of occurring on that day. McCreight also said that the mean magnitude of seismic activity during the "Boobquake" event was actually slightly below average. As a result of this analysis, McCreight concluded that the immodest clothing worn during Boobquake had no significant effect on earthquake frequency or magnitude. Although McCreight admitted that there were some flaws with the experimental procedure, and that they doubted it would have any impact on Seddiqi's opinions, they believed that the event fulfilled its original intentions of being "a humorous exercise in scientific and skeptical thinking".[6]

• Women in Islam

• Jey McCreight: What I learned from Boobquake, The Guardian