Do you agree with the ideology & tactics of FEMEN?

I think they need to concentrate their efforts in the Middle East and Africa where it might do the most good.
How about standing up for young girls in countries where forced genital mutilation is accepted?

Walking around braless here just makes their efforts look like a media circus. Go where women really need help.

@LuckyGuy I think it’s kind of cool in several ways. I love the empowerment aspect and the militant aspects!

Also, I think media circus is one of ways thee bring attention to the cause, like PETA and all the others, part of the tactics so to speak.

I find it amusing they sell shirts in their online store! lol

They’re a feminist antifa group. I don’t see anything particularly odious about them, but I’m not clear what their views on gender equality are.

Some of their goals may be a little naive. I don’t like the sex industry, and I think it’s wrong how it treats women, but I think it’s safe to say it will not go away. The attractiveness of pornography and prostitutes is deep and visceral, and I don’t think we can expect that it will ever be eliminated. The best we can hope to do is control it. As a form of expression and a consensual sexual act, I don’t really think those things should be outlawed; in practice, outlawing it has the same negative effects as drug prohibition.

And then, when you talk about “outlawing” something, you are typically talking about having a centralized nation-state/super-state, which can only be a tool for oppression.

They are outrageous so you would do exactly what you did.

I had never heard of this before.

I have a different take on this. What else is new?

From the standpoint of reaching their goals – ineffective. Yes, perhaps their methods are eye catching, but I have my doubts that topless women are going to make a political difference, The only way to make progress – and it’s no guarantee, and it’s slow , is through the political process. Otherwise it is just theater.

On the other hand, I give them a lot of credit for their confidence and their agenda. Someone has to be making the effort (although, as I noted above, I doubt it will be effective). So I applaud them for the mission.

I also have to recognize that there is a fair amount of courage being shown here. It takes a lot in modern society (and particularly in the US) to get a woman to go topless in public. So these women show that they’re not afraid to do something differently. More power to them.

My question: Is the toplessness a means of drawing attention (in which case I am less in favor of it) or does it reflect a deep-seated belief in the clothes free ethic (in which case I fully support it)?

@KNOWITALL My point is that they are picking soft targets: places where it does not matter much.
They could bring peace to the middle east if they taught abused women to make the sacrifice and bobbit off the abuser’s hobbit. The actions of a few desperate women standing up for themselves in such a demeaning manner is all it would take. The slimebag men would never be able to sleep soundly again. THAT would make a difference.

@elbanditoroso: I think the idea is exposure to topless women normalizes the female body in authoritarian patriarchal societies. Consider that toplessness is permissible in reasonably gender-equal societies (Germany, France find toplesness in public acceptable), more taboo in more authoritarian societies like the USA (sometimes legal, usually not acceptable, in public), and outright shocking in the most retrograde conservative societies like Islamic countries. As exposure increases, it becomes less shocking.

It’s similar to how the homosexual rights movement worked out; at first, there was a visceral rejection, as recently as 2004 in the USA, but then it become common and accepted to see homosexual couples and people begin to realize what little impact it has on them.

No, I don’t agree with their ways. Not all their ways, at least. I heard a story about a beauty pageant in Paris. The women were all dressed in nice dresses while men were the judges. Suddenly, a bunch of FEMEN members rushed in and forcibly ripped off their dresses, exposing their breasts, all in the name of feminism. Which is not okay, at all. These women did not ask to have their bodies exposed like that. The FEMEN members did it without their permission. That is wrong and I have no respect for that.

Now I don’t know if this is FEMEN that does this but more of radfems, but some feminists will buy shirts saying “This is what a feminist looks like”. Little do they know, those shirts are being made by poor oppressed women in third world countries who are hardly getting paid at all. A little ironic, don’t you think?