Ukrainian Activists: FEMEN: Feminist Storm:

One of the key activists groups making notoriety this year has been the Ukrainian FEMEN. This group of radical female voices has recently made the headlines going to Italy and protesting Berlusconi and the Pope. Earlier in the year they reflected solidarity with the women in Saudi Arabia, who pushed civil disobedience through driving automobiles where it is forbidden for women to drive. FEMEN made headlines again this year when they protested the controversial trial against the former Ukrainian female Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

FEMEN is a unique activist group that has challenged the authorities continually this past year. What makes the activist group stand out most is their shocking tactic of protesting topless. For a feminist group, this can be seen as contradictory. But in deeper analysis, this very tactic could be why they have made so many headlines in the world press.

Regardless of fighting topless, the Ukrainian activists have a message. They want to stop sexism and the objectification of women not just in the Ukraine but also from Saudi Arabia to the Vatican. Like Code Pink, they refuse to be ignored during political debates and spectacles. Perhaps FEMEN utilize their bare essentials to strip away the false image those in power parade around.

Does protesting topless strengthen or weaken their cause? From Norman Mailer to Erica Jong to Susan Sontag, the body in the 21^st Century as in any century prior is a distraction. The tactic here seems to be a tool to enhance attention to their causes. In the Ukraine where prostitution and sexism have been on the rise since the ideological change from Communism to Capitalism, the activists are using their bodies to shock the masculine establishment from merely looking at women for pleasure. They are fighting the macho male image with their own sort of She-Hulk reflection, a defiant stance. While Vladimir Putin can run on the beach bare-chested to show off his manliness, these activists are reflecting their own equal opportunity to push their aggression and anger towards a sexist system.

Perhaps the reason FEMEN fight topless can be compared to why the Zapatistas in Mexico fight with ski-masks. The native groups associated with the Zapatistas from Mayan descent during their defiant acts against a manipulative government wore ski-masks in order to be seen. When they aren’t wearing masks, they have continually been ignored. The government and elite disregard them as primitive and able to be pushed aside. So the Zapatistas stood in solidarity with masks to overcome the disregard. Perhaps the FEMEN activists, tired of being ignored as clothed women, disregarded for their gender in making decisions regarding politics and their own body, chose to make noise without any flashy dress or humble attire.

Tired of the expression ‘be seen but not heard’, the FEMEN activists, whether in aesthetic and 'a priori' or literal statements, use the tactics that they feel suite them best because it is an extreme expression of discontent that goes beyond flesh and the superficial cultural bias of gender, which gets in the way of hearing one another to overcome corruption and manipulative obstacles. They make those in power uncomfortable this is because those in power must either cover them up for indecency or face their own indecency in their treatment of the opposite sex.