We Need To Talk About FEMEN
I've been asked a lot recently what I think about FEMEN, the Topless Ukrainian Feminist Sextremists who, if you spend a lot of time on the internet, you may be forgiven for thinking are the sole feminist activists operating at the moment. If you don't know who they are, and you would like to, you could watch this short (8 minutes-ish) film. HERE .
When people ask you what you think
about FEMEN they usually mean one, or both, of two things: What do
you think about FEMEN and their apparent raging Islamaphobia?; or 2)
what do you think of FEMEN and their fantastic and very visible
breasts. Of course you can't really talk about one without the other,
but I'm going to have a go, due to the fact that I know rock all
about Islam and I haven't done anywhere near enough research to be
able to say anything sensible or valuable on the matter and it's far
too important to throw a lot of stoopid platitudes at. I might come
back to the religion thing when I know a bit more and when I'm a bit
more confident with the blogging, but for now, I'm going to talk
about something I have plenty of first hand experience of (Oooh
Matron!) – boobs.
FEMEN
Boobs occupy an appropriately prominent
position on the body of feminist discourse, as central to debates
about women's autonomy as the issue of reproductive rights, with
which they are of course deeply entwined. The politicized, feminist
breast is there, or not there, in the protests against Miss America
and Miss World pageants in the late 1960s; in burned bras; in the
folded pink ribbons that encircle millions of women in sisterhood and
solidarity against breast cancer every year; in binding; in Primark
padded bras for 4 year old girls; in the current Ban Page 3 campaign;
it goes on...
In recent years, I have never felt my
own, personal need for feminism more acutely than when I've been
asked by a man to breastfeed more discreetly; or, conversely, when I
have been feeding at night: shattered, touched out and totally
desiccated by a clingy, insatiable baby, staring jealously and
resentfully through the darkness at John's flat, breastless chest
rising and falling slowly in deep, snoring breaths beside me.
My own feminism was suckled not on the
fabulously bra-less breasts swinging loose within the pages of
Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch,
but rather on the lager-soaked 'tits' of sexy 'ladettes' like Denise
van Outen and Geri Halliwell, squished together in a vice-like
Wonderbra, screaming “Hello Boys!!!!” through padded lace on the
cover of FHM. In the years before, I'd been a huge fan of L7, Hole
and Bikini Kill, but the actively feminist element of Riot Grrl had,
until now, somehow passed me by (I'd been too busy planning my
wedding to Kurt Cobain). This felt different.
Twitching
with the dream of emancipation, feeling the spirit of Emmeline
Pankhurst tingling in my nipples, I quickly got rid of all my baggy
t-shirts, saved up for a bright pink, skin tight, v-necked top from
Morgan and, with the help of Gossard's finest, Girl Powered UP! My
boobs looked fantastic: Feminism was ace! I worked hard on developing
my feminist persona – I hosted Anne Summers parties (surely just
like Consciousness Raising sessions?); I drank alcopops til I was
unconscious to showcase my liberation; I planned my wedding to Kurt
Cobain....
But
crucially, I felt empowered and, most importantly, I started identifying as a Feminist.
What that means to me changes with the tides – some days I'm
reaching for the shears with Valerie Solanis, other days I'm fighting
for my right to make a cupcake. But that founding, empowering identification –
I Am A Feminist - however bizarre its provenance might seem
in retrospect, stayed with me and continuously informs how I choose
to live my life.
So when I first saw
FEMEN - tits out, slender white bodies scrawled with FUCK YOUR MORALS
in black marker, flowers in their hair and looking more like
'super-groupie' Pamela des Barres' merry band of GTOs than the likes
of Dworkin, Firestone or hooks – I felt, perhaps, differently from
many Feminists of my generation. My overwhelming feeling wasn't one
of disappointment at how their nakedness courts the desiring,
objectifying male gaze; or frustration at their unwillingness to
challenge the age old reduction of 'woman' to 'body'; or anger at
their wholesale subscription to the dominant (patriarchal) model of
ideal (white) femininity. Of course I get all that. Of course I feel
all that, I'm older now and there's a lot of books, conversations and experience
between me and The Girlie Show feminism of my youth. But just as much
as all that, in fact MORE than all that, I felt a huge wave of pure
bloody excitement for all the teenage girls (and women) who were
about to fall in love with, and be empowered by, FEMEN. Because if girls feel like they
need to talk about FEMEN, then they are still talking about Feminism.
And we need to talk about Feminism.