WaPo: “Meet Femen, the “naked shock troops of feminism” who greeted Trump with a topless protest in Paris”
Members of feminist movement Femen are arrested Sunday by French police after demonstrating in front of the Arc de Triomphe as world leaders arrived for ceremonies commemorating the end of World War I. (Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images)
Thanks to @spindokai on Twitter for the alert
According to the Washington Post, today during trump’s visit to Paris for the (spurning of) the WW1 battlefield commemoration ceremony, a group of topless women with messages like “FAKE PEACEMAKERS” drawn onto their bodies charged in front of the presidential motorcade headed towards the Arc de Triomphe. After the act of civil disobedience, “the radical feminist group Femen claimed responsibility, explaining on its website that it was protesting world leaders it considers war criminals.”
The Topless Topics Take
Look, as you can see from the above picture from my attendance to the “No to Kavanaugh Confirmation” protest from 8/26/2018 (see the video for this protest here), I’m not opposed to either going topless as a political act, nor of using my body as a canvas to write the messages that so many people have become immune to reading when written out on more conventional mediums, like a homemade sign. Without going into a huge rant about it (though maybe I should make this a topic for a future Topless Topics video…hmmm), I’ve heard the arguments against acts like this (namely the tired “these girls just want attention” take) and TBH they’re pretty much identical to the arguments I hear against the fight for topless equality in general. If you look female and you go topless, you’re “just looking for attention” “being a slut” etc. etc. etc. But if you try to point out this hypocrisy WITHOUT going topless, you’re “not practicing what you’re preaching” or, more likely, just ignored entirely. Now, is going topless in front of the fake president really all that closely related to fighting against “war criminals” as Femen claims? Probably not, but on the other hand, so much of the harm perpetuated by supporters of politicians like trump disproportionately affect women and nonbinary people, simply because of the longstanding history of being disregarded by society as soon as we deviate from accepted madonna/whore roles. Women aren’t considered “people” in our own right–either we’re fulfulling our roles as giving birth to and parenting the next generation, or we’re fulfilling sexual fantasies. Sometimes both at the same time! There are no other states of being that women are allowed by the majority of society to occupy, certainly not while wearing a shirt.
There’s too much to get at here for me to type out in the handful of minutes I have until the kids wake up from their nap (speaking of parenting x.x) so let’s table this until I have time to do a video about it (so in like 18 years? lolcry). In the meantime, why don’t you share your own opinions about this subject? You can submit a guest post, either written or in video form, by using this form, and I’ll post it up as soon as I’m able to (or just link to it, if you prefer): http://www.toplesstopics.org/contact/guestsubmission/
