It's been a while since I've written about Femen, the Ukrainian-born topless protest group that has since gone global. But this tee, just Tweeted, and on sale at their web site, seemed timely.
Considering that the group considers their bare breasts "weapons" in the war against misogyny, creating a clothed toplessness raises some questions: Is this self-aware parody? Commoditization of their tactics for fundraising? Or just a more accessible form of solidarity for shy women (and flat-chested men)?
There's another version of the shirt that reads, "Every Woman is a Riot" in reference to Pussy Riot - the allied Russian punk protest band that won the world's support when some members were jailed.
Marianne is the mythical face of the French Revolution. A symbol of France's revolutionary values, Marianne's face graces a series of stamps issued every few years with a new interpretation.
"For all those who ask who the model was for Marianne, it's a mix of several women, but particularly Inna Shevchenko, founder of Femen [France]"
According to The Local, Ms. Shevchenko was not even aware that her face had inspired this small act of nationalist subversion. The artist told the press, "For me, Marianne, who is represented bare-breasted, would probably have been a Femen in 1789 because she fought for the Republic's values - liberty, equality and fraternity."
France's Christian Democrat Party has demanded a boycott of the stamp as "an affront to the dignity of women and the sovereignty of France."
This time, however, they've gone full monty. And in wintry Stockholm, of all places.
(NUDITY IN VIDEO)
From their media release:
Today in the snowbound Stockholm the world has seen apocalyptic picture.
International women's movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt! Before the decisive day of the referendum in Egypt activists came to the Embassy of Egypt in Stockholm to support Egyptian heroes who are resisting the sharia-dictatorial draft of the constitution of the president Morsi. FEMEN calls people of Great Egypt to deny this religious bondage of newly appeared prophet Morsi and to give the chance for Egypt for the rightful democratic development.
"Sharia is not a constitution" - it has been written on Alia's naked body. Her genitals have been covered by the poster shaped like Koran. The three posters in the hands of activists are the symbolic religious books. In that way FEMEN warns the world about the danger of the transformation secular constitution into religious. FEMEN warns muslim brother Morsi, if he gave an orders to shoot at his own people then his last resting will be the Nile with crocodiles, not the pyramids.
Fuck off religious slavery! Viva freedom and human rights!
Both Femen and Ms. Elmahdy (the transcribed version of her name varies) have become polarizing figures in the women's movement. Some see them as shock tacticians who are exploiting their own sexuality for attention. Others (myself included) see them as activists who are acting out of desperation, using their bodies as weapons in their respective, extremely sexist, cultures. Their message is, "men think they own this — but it is mine to do with what I please."
Femen has been getting more extreme of late, lashing out against organized religion in their homeland. As a result of legal troubles, they recently moved some of their operations to Paris. I'm just happy to see them all somewhat safer in Western Europe.
The infamous Ukrainian anarcho-feminist movement, known for protesting topless agains prostitution, corruption and misogyny, now have a new target: admen.
Fiat dishonestly uses image of femen activists in advertising campaign to promote their product at the Latin American market. Brazilian advertisers use recognizable attributes of the women's movement femen in their video without our consent. We believe such action against us is unfair.
Have a look for yourself (it's in Portuguese):
It sure seems "inspired" by Femen, who also have an active chapter in Brazil. In addition to co-opting their concept, the ad also wimps out on the nudity, then undermines their ideals by having them women gleefully jump into the man's car at the end.
This wouldn't be the first time a grassroots, anti-system movement was co-opted by the very "Man" they oppose. But note that Femen don't seem to be attempting any legal action, just social complaint.
Back in January, I blogged on Osocio about a Russian punk band called "Pussy Riot" that made headlines for its guerrilla gigs against Vladimir Putin.
Here they were in Red Square with "Putin Pissed":
At the time, they seemed like another expression of post-Soviet feminine frustration with the continued male dominance of — and corruption in — politics. Like Femen, but with balaclavas instead of bare breasts.
Also in common with their Ukranian sisters-in-protest, they continued to push boundaries. After a a guerrilla performance in Moscow's main cathedral, in which they sang to the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Vladimir Putin, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested for "Hooliganism" and "Inciting Religious Hatred". In August, they were sentenced to two years' hard labour. (Two other band members fled Russia.)
Not to be outdone, Femen sent prominent member Inna Shevchenko out to chainsaw down a wooden memorial cross in Kiev... topless, of course. (She had to flee to France afterwards, to avoid arrest and/or angry religious mobs.)
With all this attention, mainstream reporters and news editors suddenly found themselves writing "Pussy" over and over again, sometimes with amusing results.
Pussy Riot even made a conceptual appearance at New York Fashion Week (see photo at top), their colourful balaclavas co-opted in the Gerlan Jeans runway show. Quite the strange journey for a anarcho-feminist collective.
There are many people in the world who suffer for free speech. Why are Pussy Riot the ones everyone got behind?
They're anonymous and frightening, combined with the hardcore music, but also use warm colours and soft fabrics. It's a look easily copied by supporters, and make a memorable symbol of protest.
And the music. Fast, guitar-driven punk with one political barb after another. The band kept releasing new material, even with three in prison:
Sex, balaclavas and rock 'n' roll... it's a powerful combination for a fringe movement in need of popular support. And it's working.
Just last week, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for the three members of the punk band Pussy Riot to be freed, saying "In my view, a suspended sentence would be sufficient, taking into account the time they have already spent in custody." They have an appeal scheduled for October first.
A friend through FEMEN posted this on Facebook. Part of me really hopes it is fake. But in trying to authenticate it, I ran into this colour screencap of a "banner ad" version:
I then tracked it back to a three-month-old Reddit post.
Real or fake as the ad may be, this kind of thing does happen in the world.
My old topless anarcho-feminist friends at FEMEN have recently moved into their own bricks-and-mortar HQ in Kiev. They posted these pictures of their front door on their Facebook page:
My Osocio colleague, Marc, sent me this link about a group of Polish women who got naked and posed with a giant penis to protest FEMEN's assault on the Euro 2012 soccer tournament — co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
Their statement:
Euro 2012 is unique occasion for us women to earn some extra money on sex-tourism! Many Polish women count on these profits and can't wait foreign football fans. Generally we earn less, usually we get worse job. Many of us bring up children alone, so Euro is a great opportunity for us. It is a chance to earn extra money and in many cases an opportunity to break the fall.
As female artists, whose income from the art is too low to be able to maintain itself, we look forward to this opportunity too. Therefore, we disagree with the action of Ukrainian feminists Femen who protest against prostitution during Euro - also in Poland! If they want to rebel, they can do it at home in the Ukraine! Poland is our territory!
We do not believe, moreover, that selling bodies is worse and more humiliating kind of prostitution than the one practiced every day by some artists supporting correct ideologies - in exchange for fame, and money. We prefer to be prostitutes dealing bodies then becoming artists from the first rows of the art whores system – selling their artistic freedom!
Therefore, we vote for prostitution in Reality – and against prostitution in ART! Therefore we urge all the feminists during the time of Euro 2012 to stay in the kitchen and let Polish girls earn some money!
On the occasion of EURO 2012, we also created our own Euro 2012 mascot. This is the eight-foot sculpture of an anonymous figure - "Prince X", inspired by the work of renowned sculptor Constantin Brancusi, showing substantial male genitals – the symbol of our prosperity.
Part of me really hopes this is a clever false-flag operation by FEMEN, or their allies. Or even a parody.
The manifesto goes from demanding that "All the feminists during EURO should be closed in the kitchen and not disturb Polish girls!" and moves on to:
We will establish a new order of things, law and justice. All mobile chargers will have the same input, if someone cannot afford the petrol, we will push his car. There will be no more illiterates, science and religion will become reconciled. A square wheel will be invented, testing of nuclear weapons and cream on rabbits will be stopped. Number of whales, killer whales, marsupials and other endangered species (including sturgeon) will be increased. The prices of rye on the international market will fall down. There will be no homeless and unemployed people, poaching will disappear. North America will be returned to the Indians, deforestation in the Amazon will end. The domination of the drug cartels will end. All corporations will become bankrupt. All pornographic corporations will be ruined too, because thanks to our services everybody will be satisfied. Even the Six Heads of Lenin. There will be no venereal disease, prostitution and people-trafficking will disappear. There will be yachts for everyone. You'll never run out of bananas for our youth. Everyone will get a slave, and will be someone's slave, and yet slavery will dissapear.
The group is real however, and have apparently been around since 1998. I suppose they're just having some fun, here. And I can't wait for FEMEN's response.
According to Jezebel, Natalia Juarez is a 34-year-old philosophy professor running for Congress as a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. The headline reads, "I dare you to build a new project for a nation with no prejudices." The other women are also PDR candidates.
Jezebel's Erin Gloria Ryan is a little cynical about the use of "boobies" to get attention, but I applaud any effort in which women take back ownership of their bodies by using our primal fascination to deliver messages of solidarity for social change.
""It's better for one thousand of us to take a step forward than for one leader to take one thousand steps for us."
Ms. Juarez told CNN, "Society is lethargic. We don't seem to be aware of our role. We need to get energized. We need to tell people, 'Hey, wake up because if you don't, sharks are going to eat you up. Wake up, you citizen and politician'"
Mexico will hold presidential and congressional elections on July 1.
With their headline-grabbing tactic of demonstrating topless, the women of Ukraine's FEMEN movement can seem like a novelty act. But believe me, they are deadly serious.
And one of the main reasons they came into existence, a few years ago, was to fight against the way Ukrainian women are perceived and treated — not just in their own country, but around the world.
This year, the focus of their anger has been the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2012), which will be co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland. Like many other major sporting events, Euro 2012 is expected to arouse a boom in prostitution as local women offer to "service" foreign soccer fans.
“I don't know what type of people will come or how they see our country, but if they think it is a 'brothel country', how will they behave with young women on the streets? You know, our girls dress quite liberally, which is usually not accepted in a European country, and to some could seem as a sexual call . This will also influence the behaviour of the sport fans. Thus, we need drive home the message: 'Yes, Ukrainian girls usually dress like this, but they are not prostitutes.'”
Women re-appropriating their own sexuality. It's a thing now, with worldwide movements like Slutwalk and Rock The Slut Vote. But before them were these half-dressed Ukrainian women, shivering and screeching against a system that tries to keep them down. Let's all hope in never does.
The demonstration, themed "Allah created me naked" includes slogans such as "Muslim women let's get naked", "Nudity is freedom", "I am a woman, not an object", "Naked war" and "Naked truth". (They also hold signs in Ukrainian, French and Arabic.)
While their hearts are all in the right place, the show of solidarity also reminds me of this cartoon:
The question being whether sexual freedom depends on sexual display. I'm sure the women of FEMEN would agree that the choice of dress or undress is every person's individual choice — as long as they are not being coerced or brainwashed.
On the other hand, women from more oppressive religious Muslim societies who choose the route of nude expression, such as Golshifteh Farahani or Aliaa Magda Elmahdy (who is name-checked in body paint), face disapproval, banishment, and even physical harm.
What do you think of this message and tactic?
You can see and read more about the demonstration (in Ukranian) at FEMEN's Livejournal.
Facebooker Tanja Tännenbaum and FEMEN are daring Facebook admins to censor this photo of male and female breasts.
The top-free Ukrainian feminist group has been dutifully censoring their FB pictures for quite a few months, following run-ins with the social network's notoriously knee-jerk "decency" policies.
On this issue, FEMEN are in the same boat as breastfeeding activists and artists who have also drawn the ire of anonymous users acting as morality police, even on private pictures.
No, this isn't a post about FEMEN. But it does provide some context for why they started using their breasts as their primary medium of protest. Because if these ads for outdoor outfitter Go Free are any indication, consumers there are even more boob-obsessed than their Western counterparts.
The first ad, apparently for helmets, was featured on Copyranter this morning. I found two more on their YouTube channel.
"In 2002, the organisers of the Millionaire Fair shook the little country of the Netherlands at its foundations by organising an event unparalleled in luxury and size. 'A fairytale for the affluent, a cornucopia for culinary fans and a feast of superlatives', louded the press. Initiator Yves Gijrath (CEO Gijrath Media Groep) and publisher of Miljonair Magazine, launched the idea for the Millionaire Fair on the basic theme of their magazine: 'The Luxury Lifestyle'.
The Amsterdam launch paved the way for a great success. The next year, in 2003, the Fair quadrupled in terms of size and number of visitors. In 2005, the first international Millionaire Fair was held in Moscow. Since then, this glamorous spectacle has been conquering the world and the Millionaire Fair is known as the World's Leading Luxury Fair. A place where the top of the international luxury industry meet to present their most beautiful and exclusive products and services. In the past years the organisers received some very meaningful reactions by visitors, celebrities and exhibitors..."
Europe is in the middle of a financial crisis and, according to FEMEN, a women's rights one as well. Is there something inherently wrong with the rich carrying on like this at such a time? State your piece below.
Femenista Inna Shevchenko told media that UEFA, the international football organisation, is "trying to influence our government" to legalize prostitution in advance of the June, 2012, kickoff to accommodate the legions of randy fans pouring in from across Europe.
In their usual modest and retiring style, the protestors went to the venue and stripped off their tops, spread their legs, and put tiny soccer balls on their crotches with the slogan "UEFA Attacked Our Gates".
First PETA. Then FEMEN. Then, last month, Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted naked pictures of herself online to protest sexist oppression.
Now it's Chinese supporters of dissident artist Ai Weiwei who are dropping trou for a cause.
According to Shanghaiist, Ai Weiwei announced Friday that Beijing police were now investigating his assistant Zhao Zhao for "spreading pornography online" for posting a picture of the artist with four female models, all nude. (Link)
What I really love are the group shots censored with AWW faces:
There is no doubt that this will get attention. Naked people always seem to, no matter how many billions of artistic, scientific and erotic nude pictures are available at the stroke of a Google. But as the shock value diminishes with the increasing ordinariness of seeing other humans in their altogether, will the efficacy of the tactic also fade?
I guess we'll just have to see. But as long as places like Egypt and China (not to mention many Western democracies) continue to harshly fight the normalization of naked displays of the human body, there will still be someone to scandalize.
I'll admit it—although I am occasionally critical or sarcastic about their tactics, I am a FEMEN fanboy. And it's not just for the obvious reasons. They keep coming up with interesting and artistic ways to get their message across.
This collection of altered Soviet-era propagada posters, shared on their Google+ page, present the Ukrainian activist cause with a wink and a smirk.
Ukraine is not a brothel!
Youth to the stadiums!
People's dreams come true!
Good my beauty - all at the show will enjoy!
Milkmaids, achieve good yields of milk from each cow
We are used to seeing all kinds of nudity in the West. But in the Muslim world, it is much different. Even fairly secular countries censor nudes in art as well as advertising.
20-year-old Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy wants to change that. Last month, she started a new Google blog, called "Nude Art" which features full-frontal nudes of herself and an unidentified male, as well as a cat and some artsy underwear and embrace shots.
They're not great art shots. They look like 1940s amateur pornography. But like that, what they do have is a certain authentic and defiant naïveté from someone who wants to own her own body in a culture than denies that freedom. The most political of the pictures features self-censorship: “The yellow rectangles on my eyes, mouth and sex organ resemble the censoring of our knowledge, expression and sexuality,” she explained.
“I have the right to live freely in any place… I feel happy and self satisfied when I feel that I’m really free,” she said.
Nothing particularly shocking to jaded Western internet eyes. But in Egypt, where the post-Tahir atmosphere is one of increasingly conservative religious influence, this is practically treason.
The responses on the blog on Twitter (#nudephotorevolutionary) are in both English and Arabic. One negative comment is translated as “a desperate act of social political suicide by a young woman”. And another: “We are defending secularism from innuendos & then we get this #NudePhotoRevolutionary Stop shocking people to the point of repulsion.”
But the comments also show that there is a new generation, globally informed, who want more than an end to political oppression. They want total freedom. Said one English commenter:
"I'm very impressed and inspired by your courage. The revolution in Egypt needs to be a catalyst for greater freedom of expression. If somebody wants to wear a hijab they should be free to do so without facing discrimination but you must also be able to express yourself any way you choose without fear. It's your body and it's entirely up to you how you choose to express yourself."
Ukrainian topless activists FEMEN, who seem most at home on old fashioned Livejournal, have never really felt welcome on Facebook. Since their main protest tactic is to take their shirts off and fight with police, it's not surprising that the prudes at Facebook often delete their photos and even ban the group.
Well, now they're testing the waters on Google+. So far, the new social network (unlike Google property YouTube) has not been particularly censoring of content. It will be interesting to see how FEMEN make use of the freedom.
Although, since they update in Ukrainian, I may need Google Translate as well.
