Open AccessThe FEMENist Connection: Ruptures and Agency in FEMEN France
Author(s) -
Marine Gheno
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
multilingual discourses
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1929-1515
DOI - 10.29173/md24836
Subject(s) - commodification , agency (philosophy) , militant , feminism , context (archaeology) , gender studies , criticism , power (physics) , sociology , feminist movement , women's history , political science , history , law , social science , politics , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , economics , market economy
FEMEN embodies many ambiguities as a feminist group using its members' bare breasts to inscribe messages and attract media attention. Now settled in France, a context wherein the women’s movement has a long history of activism and theory, these ambiguities are particularly visible through strong criticism from feminist figures. In this article, I argue that FEMEN actions are both beneficial and detrimental to feminism as they present the media with eroticized militant women while empowering such representations of women. In the vein of popfeminism and girl power media culture, FEMEN contributes to a transformation of contemporary feminist activism in continuity with feminist claims to agency, and in rupture with feminist criticisms of neoliberal commodification of women.