Tits Up

Brainy On Radical Feminism

I see a Google alert in my inbox. The Femen girls are up to something. Over in France, they’ve just shown their tits to President Macron. I’m giddy.

I have only one Google alert set on my laptop and it’s there to make sure I don’t miss a Femen moment. I’ve been fascinated by these women since I first saw a video of two members of the radical feminist activist group flashing a couple of Imams at an Islamic conference on Sharia law in 2015.

They came out swinging, fists raised, breasts bare except for the painted French words, ‘no one makes me submit’ and ‘I am my own prophet’, slapped across their perfect nipples in thick black paint. The Femen protesters, determined and passionate, screamed at the mix of a gob-smacked and cheering crowd. The clerics on stage backed away with what looked like a combination of fear and bewilderment. I wished they were rabbis. I come from a long line of misogynists, and without thinking, I rejoiced. 

Admittedly, my response was a bit juvenile - the same childish delight I used to get back in London watching news of some weirdo British streaker run across a football field, bollocks hanging out, as Arsenal fans were whipped into a frenzy. But I couldn’t help myself, I was thrilled to be watching this spectacle.

I’m not suggesting their behavior was perfect or even right but the rebel in me was so glad they did it.

I immediately set the Google alert.

Predictably, the two Femen women at the conference were dragged away by a group of bearded men who proceeded to kick the shit out of them and once I recovered from watching the beating, what struck me was the audacity of these young women, the fearlessness and courage this act of complete insanity required.

Femen sextremists, as they call themselves, have been beaten, kicked, threatened, kidnapped, blindfolded, intimidated, arrested, and fined. Commitment is required.

I know this sort of radical behavior is offensive to some, especially nowadays when it seems the entire planet is racing to be on pole position for Most Offended, but using nudity to challenge the establishment is an age-old tradition and at a time when the feminist movement seems to be going tits-up, (pun intended), I see this brand of Feminism meets Banksy as a necessary glimmer of hope.

Femen activists have ripped off their tops before the most powerful men in the world including Trump, Putin, Berlusconi, Lukashenko, Le Pen, and even the pope. It’s a prestigious list.

Is flashing your tits in the faces of world leaders the most effective way to express your opposition to the Patriarchy? Of course not, but the rebel in me is so glad someone’s doing it.

Among other things, Femen has been accused of being naïve, foolish and of using their bodies in the same sexualized manner in which the Patriarchy would have them used. They’ve been criticized for trying to save women from other cultures who don’t share their views or need their help. Their tactics have been called ineffective and insulting. Some of this may be true but what they do best is get attention where it’s often needed.

Still, I can’t help wondering what my grandmother, Safta, as we called her, would have made of them. I suspect she’d have been horrified. After all, Safta was a devout and pious woman who was raised with few choices. She wore a head covering from the moment she was married off at the age of twelve – this age is estimated. No one ever bothered to record the date of her birth because she had a vagina. No one bothered to teach her to read and write either. Again – vagina.

They did, however, load her up with morals and values and perhaps most importantly Safta was taught that to be a woman, was to submit. This wasn’t Patriarchy-Lite. This was old school, women as property, rape is your fault, biblical shit, that was in turn, dutifully passed down to me.

I’m half Bukharian. Don’t worry, no one else knows what that is either. More on this another time, but my grandparents were driven from their home in the 30’s, leading them to Israel and leading my father, eventually, to England.

There’s nothing like a glimpse of what might have been to make you truly appreciate the invaders who changed the course of your life.

It’s because of the cultural conditioning from which I descend, that I cannot in good conscience discourage the sort of radical behavior in which Femen engages, not when by sheer luck I narrowly escaped being married off before my teens.

In London, where a woman was running the country, I was raised to shut up, look good, and spit out babies, and while in my Orthodox days I too would likely have written Femen off as a bunch of crazy culturally ignorant shiksas, I could have used a few passionate topless nutters.

Had they flashed their tits at my great grandfather as he pawned off my grandmother over a handful of raisins – her words, not mine - I imagine the rebel in Safta might have been cheering too.