Rise of the naked female warriors
Known for its topless protesters, Femen is a worldwide movement against patriarchy. But, asks Kira Cochrane, are the activists breasts obscuring their message?
NE day last summer, Inna Shevchenko went into a forest outside Kiev to learn how to use a chainsaw. The lumberjacks instructing her could not work out why she was so keen. “They thought I was just a crazy blonde,” she says, shaking her curls.
The next day she went to a hill top overlooking Kiev and stripped to a pair of red denim shorts, heavy boots, leather gloves and a mask to protect her eyes. The Pussy Riot verdict was due that day and in tribute to the Russian punk activists — and to mark her opposition to all religions — Shevchenko proceeded to chop down a 4m wooden cross that had been there since 2005.
She posed against the stump for invited journalists. With “Free Riot” scrawled across her bare breasts, she held out her arms to mirror the figure of Christ now lying on the ground.
Death threats arrived instantly. She says there were official calls for her arrest and Russian TV reported that the cross was a memorial to the victims of Stalinism. Shevchenko denies this, but Ukrainian journalists repeated the claim and anger towards her sharpened. Men she suspected of being secret service agents immediately began milling outside her apartment; a few days later she was woken at 6am by the sound of her front door being kicked in. She escaped, jumping through a back window, then down from a first floor balcony and made her way to Warsaw with $50, a cellphone and her passport.
She feared jail if she returned to Kiev, so some days later she travelled to France, where women had expressed interest in joining Femen, the feminist group she runs with three Ukrainian friends.
Femen ’ s aims are straightforward, broad and radical. A war on patriarchy on three fronts, calling for an end to all religions, dictatorships and the sex industry. The group has been offered a space in a rundown theatre in Paris as headquarters and it is there that I meet Shevchenko, 24, at the start of a training session with 20 young Femen activists. She is giving instructions on the correct stance — feet apart, firmly rooted, aggressive. Femen warriors never smile, she says. They are not there to please anyone. The group has been protesting topless since 2010, using their bodies to attract attention, to lure journalists, and they have been roundly criticised by some people, who accuse them of playing into sexist stereotypes.
In a room covered with posters and murals — F**k Religion, says one, Go out! Undress! Win!, says another —
Othe activists stand in rows, screaming slogans at each other. They are dressed in T-shirts and tracksuits, occasionally stopping to swig bottled water. This is gym class for the revolution.
“Not a sex toy,” they scream. Then, “Poor because of you” and “In gay we trust”. One by one, they take to the middle of the room to show how they would behave at a protest. One new member shouts “Pope no more” before two other activists launch themselves at her. For a moment all three are in midair, then they hit the ground and start struggling in a blur. Shevchenko has told them they must move constantly to avoid being covered; their slogan will be written across their bare chests and backs and they need it to be seen. One woman fights hard, still screaming, occasionally breaking free, running a few paces only to be brought down again with a brutal thwack. Finally, Shevchenko calls a halt and the woman stands up with blood running down her arm. Shevchenko smiles, grabs her hand and holds the injured limb aloft. There is clapping, cheering, congratulations.
As the activists start the next stage of training — sit- ups, press-ups, running-whilescreaming — journalists and cameramen swirl around. There is no attempt to hide the fact that this session is being played out for the press. As women fight Shevchenko comes up close to them, in her denim hot pants, hooded top and boots, instructing them to look at the camera. It does not matter how many people come to a protest, she says — if there is one camera, that is what they need to target to get their message out to millions.
On some level, this is working. Each time Femen stages an action, videos pop up on websites worldwide. But are their breasts obscuring their message? I suspect there are longtime feminist activists who take one glance at their tactics and, jaded by the use of women ’ s bodies in art, advertising and commerce, do not pause to hear what they are saying.
Their message can also get lost in the breadth and sprawl of their protests. Whereas other groups focus on one or two issues, Femen are everywhere. Over the past few years they have protested for gay rights in St Peter’s Square during the pope ’ s weekly prayers, against the use of ultra-thin models at Milan fashion week and during Euro 2012 in Ukraine, when they grabbed the championship trophy in protest against the sex industry. In February, they provoked raised eyebrows and a few sniggers by launching themselves topless at Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi.
Their campaigning is unified by one central aim: to use their breasts to expose corruption and inequality wherever they see it. “One of the main goals,” says Shevchenko, “is to take the masks off people who wear them, to show who they are, and the level of f**king patriarchy in this world, you know? ”
She says they also want to reclaim women’s bodies for women. “A woman’s naked body has always been the instrument of the patriarchy,” she says. “They use it in the sex industry, the fashion industry, advertising — always in men’s hands. We realised the key was to give the naked body back to its rightful owner, to women, and give a new interpretation of nudity . . . I’m proud of the fact that, today, naked women are not just posing on the cover of Playboy, but can be at an action, angry, and can irritate people.”
The group started in 2006 when founders Anna Hutsol, Oksana Shachko and Alexandra Shevchenko (no relation to Inna) became friends in their home town in Ukraine. They started a women ’ s group and began organising against the sex industry. Sex tourism is a major problem in Ukraine and every woman is victimised as a result, says Alexandra. “You ’ d walk down the street and foreigners — men — would ask how much, [would] touch you.”
Shevchenko joined the group in 2009. In those early days they were just developing their views. Feminism was unpopular in Ukraine; saying you were a feminist was “something similar to saying you ’ re an idiot, you’re crazy,” says Shevchenko.
Their protests were clothed at first. They would go out with price tags hanging off them to protest against the sex industry, for example. They always had an interest in branding and initially wore all- pink outfits — some journalists called them the pink revolution.
In 2010, in protest against the appointment of an all-male cabinet, they dressed up as men, then took off their suits to reveal women’s clothing. Shevchenko was working in the press office of the Kiev mayor at the time. As a result of the protest, she was fired.
That same year, they staged their first topless protest. Five activists at the polling station where presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych was due to vote stripped in front of the media. The image went global. They were not immediately convinced they should protest topless all the time, but the response started “a huge, hot aggressive discussion”, says Shevchenko. She was initially against the idea. She felt shy, uncomfortable with her body and frustrated that as “a woman you have to take off your shirt to say something”. But they continued to protest — sometimes topless, sometimes clothed — for six months and she “realised that sometimes, when we were not topless, we were talking about much more important topics, but they were just ignored”. They decided to go for it and grew wise to the tabloid tactic of cropping out their banners — they began scrawling slogans directly on their breasts. Shevchenko says her naked body now feels like a uniform. Alexandra describes it as “my weapon, my gun”.
The group has been accused of deploying only young, slim, beautiful women. But a new book about Femen, just published in France, features photos of women of different shapes and sizes on demonstrations — pictures I have never seen elsewhere.
The media, unsurprisingly, pick the most obviously attractive photos. Shevchenko says they have never chosen women according to their looks or weight; the only proviso is that they have to be well prepared. “There are a lot of girls who are very strong physically but they cannot show aggression, they cannot imagine how they will react if someone tries to grab them.” The movement is non-violent — Shevchenko calls it “peaceful terrorism” — but she has been injured more than once and was badly beaten during a recent action.
Their actions have sometimes been dismissed, but there is no doubt the women of Femen take serious risks. In late 2011, for example, Shevchenko and two other activists travelled to Minsk, in Belarus, to protest outside the KGB offices against Alexander Lukashenko, the man often called Europe’s last dictator. They expected to spend New