In 1984, what does Winston mean when he tells Julia, "You're only a rebel from the waist downwards"?
As the previous answer states, this is a reference to the essentially physical nature of Julia's rebellion. Unlike Winston, whose rebellion is ideological and intellectual, Julia defies the Party chiefly because it denies her the physical pleasures that she so craves. The most obvious way in which she does this is by engaging in the act of sex. She tells Winston she's had several lovers in the past - and appears distinctly unmoved by the fate of at least one of them, a Party member who committed suicide before he could be eliminated by the Party. "A good thing too," is her response, "otherwise they'd have had my name out of him when he confessed." She appears distinctly cold here, although she does show genuine warmth towards Winston.
Julia also wants other physical indulgences, like make-up and chocolate. She wants to blossom out into a woman in the...
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way that the Party denies; therefore when she takes off the shapeless sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League to which she ironically belongs, this is highly symbolic. She really wants the finer and sweeter things in life, which the Party is so dead set against. Her physical needs and desires orchestrate her rebellion.
On what page in George Orwell's 1984 does Winston refer to Julia as a rebel from the waist downwards?
Winston makes this remark to Julia at a time when their relationship is flourishing and they have even taken the extreme risk of establishing their own private meeting place - a small room above a shop owned by a seemingly innocuous old man named Mr Charrington. Winston is in love and his health, habits and general demeanour have much improved. However, he finds that Julia is not on the same page as him when it comes to intellectual opposition to the Party.
Julia has little interest in listening to Winston's musings over the apparatus of the state. On one occasion as Winston reflects that he once held evidence in his hand that could have been evidence of the Party's deliberate altering of history, Julia replies in a typically shallow fashion that she is only interested in herself and Winston in the present. This leads Winston to reply (and we cannot be sure if he feels frustration or is only being jovial),
"You're only a rebel from the waist downwards," he told her. (Part II Chapter Five p.163)
Winston is expressing his suspicion that Julia's opposition to the Party only extends to rebelliousness of a self gratifying kind, not intellectual and certainly not rebelliousness which aims to make a better society for the future. It tells us much about Julia's character that she feels not the slightest insult from the comment, but rather laughs delightedly at the wittiness of it.
At this reaction Winston goes on to consider that Julia's very superficial understanding of the ways of the party is actually typical of most of the population, and is surely a prized mechanism for the Party to retain power,
In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them.....They simply swallowed everything... (p.163)
Winston's relationship with Julia therefore helps him to gain further insight into how the Party exercises power. We could also note that although we might predict that their relationship will not last in the long term due to intellectual differences, of course their relationship does not exist in a 'normal' society anyway; chillingly, both characters know that one way or another their happiness will come to an abrupt halt at the hands of the Party.
Why does Winston say Julia is a rebel only from the waist down in 1984?
Anytime Winston Smith begins discussing the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, or the Party's various propaganda techniques, Julia becomes bored and simply falls asleep. Unlike Winston, who is interested in the way the Party maintains control over reality and the populace of Oceania, Julia is only concerned with undermining the Party in order to receive physical satisfaction. She does not bother herself with intellectual matters or deeply analyze the various ways the Party controls their society. Julia's focus on experiencing physical gratification is why Winston refers to her as a "rebel from the waist down." From Julia's perspective, she could care less about the Party's contradictory principles or how the next generation of citizens will be affected by the oppressive tactics of the Party. Unlike Winston, her goals are not linked to undermining the Party's oppressive institutions or fighting Big Brother; she simply enjoys the pleasure of deceiving the authorities and fornicating with Party members. While her goals may seem shallow, Winston admires Julia's ability to focus on herself and satisfy her inherent human desires, which is considered a rebellious act in Oceania.