Femen is a group of topless female activists who originated from Ukraine. They have become internationally known for organising some controversial topless protests against homophobia, sexism, religious institutions, sex tourism and other social topics internationally and nationally. The group have recently relocated and are now based in France, Paris. These women have regularly been detained by police due to their activism and are using sextremism to protect women’s rights. Inna Shevchenko is the leader of the Femen movement, demonstrating topless against what these women perceive as manifestations of patriarch, dictatorship, religion and the sex industry. Shevchenko has a higher profile than most members in the group as was one of the three Femen activists who were kidnapped and threatened by the Belarus KGB in 2011 (Soviet Union security) and also brought around more attention when in Ukraine by cutting down, with a chainsaw, a 4-metre high Christian cows in central Kiev in 2012.
About Femen: femen.org/about-us/
Inna Shevchenko’s website: http://www.inna-shevchenko.com
Article about Femen and topless protest: https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/zoe-holman/sextremism-really-as-radical-as-they-think
The Guardian articles on Femen: http://www.theguardian.com/world/femen
The article above talks more in-depth about the Femen movement and their methods of topless protest to try and emancipate women and to liberate them. This has much controversy around the world and especially throughout the Muslim community where Muslim women go against the claims that they are to be liberated and free by being naked. I feel that this will forever be an ongoing debate as so many women feel differently about what freedom means to them. I believe that Muslim women can do and where whatever they please but the whole point of them coving up is so that they are ‘saved’ for their husbands and are only allowed to show their bodies to their husband because they belong to them. This is why I have somewhat of a problem with Muslim culture as women are treated as second class citizens and are expected not to work or have jobs that the men have and the fact that they raised to believe that their body should only be seen by their husband. The whole controversy with Femen is that these women want freedom in the sense that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body and shouldn’t feel trapped by the clothes that she wears or she shouldn’t wear certain clothing as her husband or partner won’t like it or allow her to do so. The whole message behind the movement of Femen is to do what YOU want with your own body and to choose whether you want to wear layers of clothing or wear barely anything and not be judged by other people and bashed or shamed.
“Where the female body – through its societal projections in media, art, politics and religion – has always formed the first port of women’s oppression” – Zoe Holman
What is sex tourism?
Sex tourism is where someone will go travelling to engage in sexual activity, mainly prostitutes. A definition of sex tourism given by the World Tourism Organisation states that sex tourism is made up of trips that are organised from within the tourist sector, using its structures and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination. This is basically using women [and possibly men] as objets and using their bodies to have a ‘better’ time and experience while travelling. This is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting that people actually go out and do this. Sex tourism also brings in lower costs for sexual services in the destination country, this is because prostitution is either legal in those countries or there are indifferent law enforcements and access to child prostitution. I think that this is seriously awful and am so glad that the women part of the Femen movement are strongly against this and are fighting for this to end.
Above is a short video of the women from Femen peeing on an image of Putin. This is such a strong message showing complete disrespect towards that man and that they don’t care what he thinks because in their eyes Putin is running a dictator ship and they hate him. This work really stands out one because the women are topless with messages written across their bare bodies and the second being them peeing on the President of Russia’s photograph. I’m unsure how I feel about this as I am all for equality of the sexes and women should be able to peaceful walk around topless without being objectified or ridiculed in public etc yet some part of me thinks that peeing in public on the streets is a step too far. There are many ways to get the message across to the media and to Putin about their strong hatred towards him but there is a certain point where I would have to draw the line as this isn’t going to get through to him or anyone else any more than burning a photograph of Putin would.
The Guardian article on Femen: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/20/naked-female-warrior-femen-topless-protesters
About | Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
Phelps was an early feminist American author who challenged traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenging women’s traditional roles in marriage and family. She was also an advocate for clothing reform for women. Phelps went against convention and married a man 17 years younger than her. Later in life she would urge women to burn their corsets in protest against the stereotypes and norms faced with women. Her later writing focused on feminine ideals and women’s financial dependence. She became the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University. Phelps work aims to challenge the view that women’s pale and fulfilment resided in the home. Her work instead depicted women as succeeding in less traditional careers taking on jobs such as ministers, artists and physicians.
Bra Burning | 1960s
The 1960s was the beginning of a new era for women where protests for equal rights really began. Before the 60s women were always known to be housewives and mothers without any other sort of titles, they were simply there to serve. Many women were aggravated by this and still are today, this made women feel the need to reform this stereotype. With the 60s came the bra burning phrase were some women would literally burn their bras as they felt that it made a statement and a stand for Women’s Rights. Few women actually did this but many women supported the movement itself. They burned bras as a symbol showing independence of men at the time. Other women would often walk around wearing no bra at all again to show independence of men. To many women this meant freedom. The Femen women took inspiration from this and have taken it to a new level where they walk around topless and have things written on their bare bodies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnEfnxUm4xs
About the ‘bare-all approach’:
This approach is what got the women of Femen noticed as simply wearing colourful clothing or underwear seemingly didn’t excite journalists and so the only way to get noticed was to go around topless. One founding member stated that “journalists weren’t interested… we realised we had to do something more radical”. These women felt that they needed to do something out of the ordinary to actually get noticed and for people to consider them. This is an interesting idea as these women show confidence and strength being able to show themselves out in public when many other women would be too afraid of others shaming them or getting dirty looks from them.
Femen at a Muslim conference (France):
Overview | What I Think
I get what the women of Femen are standing for and what their message is but that is only because I’ve researched into it at bit more otherwise I don’t think that I would have got what they are doing. I’m really unsure where to stand in this situation as I completely agree that women should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their bodies and can do whatever they want with their own bodies but again not a lot of people would see that. All they see is a bunch of Ukrainian women going against the government and Vladimir Putin. They do have strong and easy to understand messages but I just don’t think that many people will see it that way and won’t really care to find out more about these women and the movement behind their activism. Their bare skin is more of a statement and what stands out most over any writing that may be on their body and I just think that peeing on photographs of Putin is a step too far and cutting down a sacred stand is also a bit much as that is where it becomes disrespectful of other peoples views and it will make them blind to the Femen women’s opinions and make people less inclined to actually listen to what they have to say. I do know that their circumstances are very different and they are living in a completely different world to me and people living in Britain and America where women’s rights are actually taken more seriously and people are starting to start the push for equality, in Ukraine and Russia women are still very much second class citizens and the women of Femen also focus on Muslim women and ‘freeing’ themselves by taking their clothes off etc. Feminism is such a huge topic and movement where women all over the world are being suppressed and different parts of the world are at different stages of equality and different levels of knowledge and understanding on the subject. The women of Femen and Pussy Riots seem to be on the same wave length and a lot of their work blends well together and they are able to relate to one another.