Femen, a feminist group in the Ukraine, uses some shocking tactics to draw attention to their cause. These young women having been staging protests for the past few years to draw attention to a number of issues, particularly the thriving sex industry in Ukraine. While this group has been heavily critcized for their employment of nudity, a great deal of attention is being directed their way. Do you think that these tactics hurt or harm their cause?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111901968.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/11/ukraines-topless-protesters-gain-fame/1
http://www.torontosun.com/news/weird/2010/11/15/16165636.html
Wow, before I even agree or disagree, I have to say that the difference in coverage of this issue is striking. The Washington Post is EXTREMELY derogative and even inserts unnecessary, character-undermining adjectives like "the chain-smoking leader." it also includes quotes that make them look ridiculous in the small "positive" part of the article attempting to add balance. Reading it greatly annoyed me, whether or not one agrees with the issue. It made me feel like the author viewed women as not being serious protesters from the start and was using the "boobs" situation (kind of annoying the author said "boobs" so much outside of quotes) to support this idea.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do find these protesters somewhat ridiculous. The idea of being shocking is not uncalled for and has been used in many protests, but this DOES seem to be turning them into a hypersexualized joke. Foreigners and visitors may now perceive Ukrainian women as being even more "loose" than they currently do, assuming that if they're encouraging going naked in public (especially among groups of beautiful women) they're comfortable being highly sexual and sexualized. I bet more men even come to protests now just to see the women get naked. Furthermore, the use of this tactic outside of relevant sexual topics, such as protesting tax cuts, makes their tactic seem like a joke.
An equally shocking but less degrading to women approach would be to show nudity in ads portrayed a naked battered women or a sick and drugged out sex worker. This would be hard to look at, yes, but it would show the negative consequences of sexualizing women rather than simply sexualizing them as a kind of indirect protest to doing so. Images of healthy, gorgeous, spunky women taking of their tops and yelling like co-eds at a concert does little to make this sexualization seem wrong -- instead, it simply fuels the patriarchal stereotype of beautiful young women as shameless and eager sex objects.