This is why the world needs FEMEN

With their headline-grabbing tactic of demonstrating topless, the women of Ukraine's FEMEN movement can seem like a novelty act. But believe me, they are deadly serious.

And one of the main reasons they came into existence, a few years ago, was to fight against the way Ukrainian women are perceived and treated — not just in their own country, but around the world.

This year, the focus of their anger has been the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2012), which will be co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland. Like many other major sporting events, Euro 2012 is expected to arouse a boom in prostitution as local women offer to "service" foreign soccer fans.

The potential for widespread exploitation and abuse of women is even worse in Ukraine, which is a well-known European destination for sex tourism.

How well-known? Check out these two ads:





In both cases, the idea that Ukrainian women are Europe's sex toys is simply taken for granted.

FEMEN's founder, Anna Hutsol, told New Europe:

“I don't know what type of people will come or how they see our country, but if they think it is a 'brothel country', how will they behave with young women on the streets? You know, our girls dress quite liberally, which is usually not accepted in a European country, and to some could seem as a sexual call . This will also influence the behaviour of the sport fans. Thus, we need drive home the message: 'Yes, Ukrainian girls usually dress like this, but they are not prostitutes.'”

Women re-appropriating their own sexuality. It's a thing now, with worldwide movements like Slutwalk and Rock The Slut Vote. But before them were these half-dressed Ukrainian women, shivering and screeching against a system that tries to keep them down. Let's all hope in never does.

Censor this, Facebook (nudity)

Source

Facebooker Tanja Tännenbaum and FEMEN are daring Facebook admins to censor this photo of male and female breasts.

The top-free Ukrainian feminist group has been dutifully censoring their FB pictures for quite a few months, following run-ins with the social network's notoriously knee-jerk "decency" policies.

On this issue, FEMEN are in the same boat as breastfeeding activists and artists who have also drawn the ire of anonymous users acting as morality police, even on private pictures.

Let's see how this one goes.

Real-life ad blockers strike Stockholm subway

A Swedish activist group posted this video of their shenanigans in the Stockholm subway, removing all ads from a train car and a station.



While I can appreciate a good civil disobedience, and I agree it's nice to have a little break from ad overload, the stunt is pretty obnoxious to anyone involved in public transit.

The group is quoted in Animal NY:

“Public transport is nothing you can compromise about. It is a vital part of the urban nervous system and is a public matter, a premise for the city’s economical and social life to function. The fact that public transport is too expensive is both a structural issue as well as a reality for individual people. It is not fair that a millionaire and an unemployed person has to pay as much for public transport. With tax-paid, fare-free, public transport everyone pays according to how much they can pay.”

I would love for buses, trains, etc. to be able to be fare- and ad-free too. That would be awesome. Seriously. But if even a country like Sweden has to supplement taxpayer funding by collecting fare and selling ad space, you can be pretty sure that is not happening in any capitalist country anytime soon.

I get it. They're anarchists. Me, I just want to be able to take the bus to work. And as a rider, I have a feeling any social action that costs the transit system revenue is going to end up coming out of my pocket.

But hey, have fun sticking it to all the wrong people.

And is this not also an ad?

Top 10 Posts of 2011, Part Two

Yesterday, I started my countdown with the the most-read posts from #10 to #6. Here are the top five, based on total visits from Jan 1, 2011, to today.

#5 Interview with FEMEN's founder, Anna Hutsol 

This post wasn't even original, it was a repost from a Facebook interview I did with Anna through her translator/community manager, Eugene Smirnov, on Osocio. It was short and sweet, as she picked and chose the questions she would answer, but any FEMEN post immediately gets the interest and support of their global activist community and associated voyeurs.

And yes, the post contained boobs.


#4 Nude activism continues to take over the internet

No, my posts are not all about nudity and sexuality. But it's a testament to the power of those primal forces, in activism as well as advertising, that my top posts mostly involve naked people.

This one was both interesting and amusing. After Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei's assistant Zhao Zhao was legally harassed for "spreading pornography online" with this picture, supporters started a nude protest blog called "Listen, Chinese Government: Nudity is NOT Pornography".

It's pretty weird. But in the tradition of PETA, FEMEN and "nude photo revolutionary" Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, it certainly gets them noticed.


#3 He's a straight talkin' PETA with a letter for the U of M...

Speaking of PETA, my distaste for their shock-and-eww tactics is a common topic here. But the PETA post that was my third most read of 2011 was neither. It was a personal appeal by one of my personal rock gods, Iggy Pop, to his alma mater to stop using live animals to train students in field medicine for the survival flight course.

It was a very well-written and rational appeal from a man who once described himself as "a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm". He even signed off with "Thanks for your time"!

Iggy has gone on to do more radical stuff for PETA, but to me this was his shining moment of elder statescraft.


#2 Disney's The Little Mermaid's sexual coming-of-age story, as told by her hipster meme

This was something I did on a winter weekend out of boredom. The Hipster Little Mermaid was a thing at the time, and I thought it would be fun to try to make a narrative out of it.

Yes, writers are sick people. But the internet is even sicker, and apparently any content that combines a teenage Disney Princess with the word "sex" is enough to bring them in like fruit flies on red wine. Even if there is no actual sex in the post, just a lot of English Major tomfoolery.

You can read the whole thing here.

#1 NZ church keeps up its irreverent Christian holiday ad tradition

As much as people love a good post about sex or nudity, blasphemy was the draw of the year. Despite being less than two weeks old, this post about the latest Christmas billboard by St Matthews in the City Church in Auckland, NZ, quickly took the lead in pageviews.

It's a beautiful ad, with an important message. According to Vicar Glynn Cardy:

"It's real. Christmas is real. It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope. This billboard portrays Mary, Jesus' mother, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant.   Regardless of any premonition, that discovery would have been shocking.  Mary was unmarried, young, and poor.  This pregnancy would shape her future.  She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last."

The progressive  Anglican church has long been known for its radical Christian messages of questioning tradition and acceptance of all people. What would Jesus do?

He'd probably go to St. Matts.

Happy New Year. I'll be back tomorrow with 2011's most effed ads.