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Qicheng Zhao
FEMEN’s Fight for Feminism in Spain Favorite
FEMEN is an organization that is revolutionizing the feminist movement. Founded in Ukraine in 2008 and adopted in Spain in 2013, FEMEN protests gender-based issues such as inequalities, violence, patriarchy, etc. Since its creation, it has spread to several other countries, and there have been hundreds of organized protests.
One such protest occurred on June 11th in Madrid outside of the Spanish Ministry of Justice. Here, several women gathered to object to the issue of femicide, or violence against women, in Spain and the harmful culture of “machismo” prevalent in Spanish society. As they describe on their social media, there had already been 21 femicides in Spain at the time of the protest which had largely been glanced over in the media. In response, they decided to use the power of the nude female body and its sexualization by men to create discussion surrounding this issue.
The use of this “sextremism” is the unifying factor in all FEMEN protests with protestors painting their topless bodies with words and slogans for a specific cause. By using their bodies as a canvas, the protestors ensure that one cannot separate the artist from their work and so the intention of the work is difficult to be misconstrued. On June 11th slogans such as “sobrevivir no es delito” (surviving is not a crime), “feminicido es crimen de odio” (femicide is a hate crime), and “contra el systema judicial patriarcal” (against the patriarchal judicial system) were painted on the protestors as they wore bright, cheery flower crowns. This choice of protest medium provides a powerful image for the media and also gives the spectator an opportunity to directly interact with the artist, which is in stark contrast to art in a museum where art is unliving. In the case of the June 11th protest, this strategy was highly effective as several articles were written about this protest, and the message surrounding the issue of femicide was distributed.
