Search

This paper intends to demonstrate how the naked body can be understood as a discursive materiality (discursive body), insofar as it destabilizes meanings historically produced about women, their bodies and sexuality. We will use the theoretical perspective of the French Discourse Analysis of Michel Pêcheux, in order to analyze a protest,performed by the feminist group FEMEN, against the implantation of Sharia in Egypt after the events of the Arab Spring in 2012. With this reflection, we aim to show that the naked body, when covered with statements that question the control of the female bodies, produces different meanings, as it displaces the bodies of the protesters from pre-determined positions constructed by the religious discourse., {"references":["E. P. Orlandi, Cidade dos Sentidos (Campinas: Pontes, 2004).","M. Pêcheux, Language, Semantics and Ideology (New York: St. Martin\"s Press, 1982).","H. Hirata; F. Laborie; H. Doaré; D. Senotier, Dicionário Crítico do Feminismo (Editora UNESP. São Paulo, 2009)","H. Kandil, A revolta no Egito. Novos estudos CEBRAP, (91), 155-193. 2001","Z. Ali, Féminismes Islamique (Paris: La Fabrique éditions, 2012).","M. Pêcheux; C. Fuchs, A propósito da análise automática do discurso: atualização e perspectivas, inF.Gadet; T. Hak, Por umaanálise automática do discurso: uma introdução à obra de Michel Pêcheux(Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 1993)","E. Dullo, Artigo bibliográfico após a (antropologia/sociologia da) religião, o secularismo?Mana, 18(2), 379-391, 2012."]}

National audience

This chapter examines the protest-performance groups FEMEN and Pussy Riot at the intersection of political performance, artistic practice, and media strategies grounded in different geopolitical contexts. Tracing their sociopolitical trajectories from their beginnings as local art-collectives into international media icons surrounded by controversy, similarities and differences between the two groups reveal how local feminist dissent can conflict with understandings of protest in western liberal democracies. These conflicts are productive for tracing the concept of gender and its impacts in East-West relations and the public sphere.

International audience

International audience

This thesis aims to study two different approaches which dissent from the dominant imaginary, through the analysis of the FEMEN movement’s direct actions and performances derived from the post-porn approach. Both dissenting approaches highlight and question, each in their own way, the sexualization of bodies, which is inherent to certain schema of the dominant imaginary: the FEMEN movement refuses it, while the post-porn approach offers other ways of sexualizing the body. An in-depth comparison of FEMEN's modes of action with those of the actors and actresses of the post-porn scene entails engagement with two different ways of re-working the notion of dominant sexual imaginaries, and also the re-signification of trans and/or non-heterosexual female bodies. Starting from the sexualization of bodies, I show how the way we look at bodies is locked in, structured by an imaginary shaped by power relationships: there are hegemonic ways to narrate the bodies of the dominant and the dominated. By disseminating themselves into the social world, corporal scripts – these fictions created through logics of domination – shape the way we look at bodies, corporal practices and social interactions. However, this locking in of the gaze contains in itself the conditions of its own unlocking. These modes of unlocking will be questioned through the prism of actions by FEMEN and post-porn activists. Does suggesting alternative body narrations unlock the gaze brought to bear on the body? What relation do these dissenting approaches have with hegemonic fictions?, La présente thèse vise à étudier deux différentes modalités de contestation de l'imaginaire dominant, à travers l'analyse des actions directes du mouvement FEMEN et des performances issues de la démarche post-porn. Ces deux démarches contestataires mettent en exergue et questionnent, chacune à leur manière, la sexualisation des corps, inhérente à certains schèmes de l'imaginaire dominant : les FEMEN la refusent ; la démarche post-porn propose d'autres façons de sexualiser les corps. Une comparaison approfondie de modes d'action des FEMEN et des acteur-ice-s de la scène post-porn implique de s'intéresser à deux façons différentes de retravailler les imaginaires sexuels dominants et de re-signifier les corps féminins, trans et/ou non hétérosexuels. A partir de la sexualisation des corps, je montre comment le regard sur les corps est verrouillé, structuré par un imaginaire traversé par les rapports de pouvoir : il y a des façons hégémoniques de raconter les corps des dominant.e.s et des dominé.e.s. En essaimant dans le monde social, les scripts corporels, ces fictions forgées par les logiques de domination, structurent le regard sur les corps, les pratiques corporelles et les interactions sociales. Mais ce verrouillage du regard contient en lui-même les conditions de son déverrouillage. Ce sont des modalités de ce déverrouillage qui seront interrogées, à travers les actions des FEMEN et des activistes post-porn. Proposer des narrations alternatives de corps déverrouille-t-il le regard sur les corps ? Quel rapport ces démarches contestataires entretiennent-elles aux fictions hégémoniques ?

In 2013, Ukraine-based feminist group FEMEN staged several protests around Europe in support of Amina Tyler, a Tunisian FEMEN activist receiving death threats for posting nude photographs of her online with social messages written on her body. Following these protests, a group of women who call themselves Muslim Women against FEMEN released a an open letter criticizing the discourse FEMEN used in these protests, which they found to be white colonialist and Islamophobic. In this paper, the author examines the discursive strategies put forth by the two sides of the debate, suggesting that undergirding both is a shared framework of liberalism. Exploring the shortcomings of liberalism as drawn on by both positions, the author attempts to rethink what “freedom” might mean for international feminist alliances across differences.

International audience

International audience; Note sous : Cass. crim., 9 janvier 2019, n° 17-81.618, FS-P+BLe fait pour une femme de dénuder volontairement sa poitrine dans une église qu’elle savait accessible aux regards du public, peu important les mobiles ayant, selon elle, inspiré son action, caractérise le délit d’exhibition sexuelle.

International audience

International audience

This study compares some sites, theories and praxes of transnational feminisms in Ukraine and France, in order to examine contemporary feminist mobilization trends. The goal is twofold: to understand similarities and/or differences in the feminist praxes of two locations; and to interrogate the notion and currency of the ―transnational‖ within feminist activism and knowledge-creation. The phenomenon of transnational feminism is interrogated both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. This comparative study focuses on a specific case-study: the topless-feminist group Femen founded in Ukraine in 2008 and settled in France since 2012. In my opinion, Femen corporeality is deeply shaped by both the time and place of its performances: my research focuses not just on Femen‘s feminist discourses and activism but also on their references from previous mobilizations and current relationships with other groups and movements, in different times and spaces. My overall aim is to examine discursive framings of corporeality and transformations in contemporary Ukraine compared with both Ukrainian Soviet past and France, in the interest of the evolving shapes of the transnational feminist public space. Thus, my dissertation addresses questions from two perspectives. An historical perspective, questioning how new gendered spaces are constructed in post-Soviet Ukraine and how Femen defines its position in the current situation of contemporary France. A sociological and feminist perspective, questioning how Femen‘s activism changes when transplanted across different countries. Agreeing with Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan‘s work «on theories of travel and the intersections of feminist, colonial and postcolonial discourses, modernism and postmodern hybridity» (Grewal & Kaplan 1994, p. 1), analyzing Femen, in my opinion, presents a twofold asset: to spread counter-narratives of the articulation between colonial and post-colonial period and to enlarge future possibilities of transnational feminist practices. Dottorato di ricerca in Politica, cultura e sviluppo, XXX ciclo

The activist movement Femen is notorious for topless protests and the ideology ‘sextremism, atheism, and feminism’. The movement’s manifesto reads: ‘Our God is a woman! Our Mission is Protest! Our Weapon are [sic] bare breasts!’ (femen.org). The references to religion are evident in phrases such as ‘our god is women’, ‘topless jihadists’ (Taylor 2013), and ‘godless witches’ (Shevchenko 2015). In this chapter I investigate a reoccurring paradox: namely that Femen attacks religions and religious institutions, while embedding references to religion in their activist imaginary. Christianity and Islam are often the center of attention on Femen’s official webpage – www.femen.org – making it possible to study the way in which activism, atheism, and feminism are articulated in relation to the two religions. This is the background for this chapter in which I focus on three Femen protests: 1) Yana Zhdanova’s grabbing of the baby Jesus doll from St Peter’s Square’s nativity scene on 25 December 2015, 2) the 2013 ‘Topless Jihad Day’, and 3) the support of the imprisoned writer and activist Raif Badawi. The chapter first suggests that in order to understand Femen’s atheist disbelief (Glendinning 2012) it is necessary to expand the theoretical approach to atheism, by moving beyond traditional organizational structures and investigating atheism that emerges in networked forms of activism. Secondly, the concept of affective mediatized activism (Reestorff 2014) is utilized to understand how Femen produces spectacles in which icon bodies become trigger-texts for affective attunement and events. Thirdly, the chapter investigates the relationship between Femen and the so-called ‘New Atheism’ and the way in which different types of atheist movements conjoin in a peculiar fight on behalf of Muslim women. This leads to the chapter’s final argument: namely that Femen’s atheist disbelief manifests as a specific form of political secularism (Mahmood 2016) that is simultaneously governing religion and embedded in a religious imaginary.

This research contributes a detailed personal account of a FEMEN activist. It presents an autophenomenographic analysis of cultural artefacts, including a Retrospective Diary, resulting from the activity of Yelena Myshko in FEMEN between 2012 and 2014. Previously FEMEN has been used as raw material for external analysis by press and academics to fit their individual agendas. To counteract this, Myshko’s research proposes an insider perspective on FEMEN activism. She writes herself in response to academics and FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko who ignore the contribution of FEMEN Netherlands. Myshko merges author/researcher/researched and uses evocative storytelling to provide an introspective account of sextremism, connecting it to relevant embodiment concepts that illustrate its technology of empowerment and unintended side effects. Through an autophenomenographic analysis of her personal experience, Myshko suggests how FEMEN employs sextremism to create soldiers of feminism. Her research proposes that sextremism is an attitude, a way of life and technology of resistance. For Myshko, sextremism embodies feminist polemic that turns against patriarchy through topless protest. Through personal accounts she illustrates how she internalized this aggressive femininity during physical and mental training. Myshko argues that in protest FEMEN activists communicate to the public and mobilize new activists through feminist snap. In addition, Myshko observes that sextremism produces visual activism that internalizes feminist polemic and transforms it into figurative storytelling. Myshko explains how she reproduced sextremism through body image that made her assertive and empowered her in action. In turn Myshko demonstrates how personal accounts of sextremist embodiment and problems encountered as a woman in the world reproduce FEMEN’s fight in the media. Myshko analysis interviews with the press where she pinpoints topical feminist issues, making FEMEN real and relevant in Western society. Myshko observes that the media appropriated the spectacle created by FEMEN Netherlands but often distorted it and bend the news to fit its own agenda. In addition, the media criticized FEMEN Netherlands for cross-passing national values and power symbols. For Myshko, sextremism is empowering but also destructive. It promotes an unapologetic self-critical attitude that accumulates collateral damage in battle. The sporadic and restrained relationships between activists does not allow intimacy. Because of the eye of the media, tenderness is perceived as weakness and is not aloud. The combination of criticism, media scrutiny and police persecution hurt Myshko’s feelings. These unresolved feelings of hurt led to resentment and disengagement from FEMEN.

This paper argues, posfeminist claims in post-1990 about the absence of oppression of women by patriarchal structures is not entirely true. They are still there. One indication is the emergence of a topless movement called Femen. in Ukraine. They protest against three things: dictatorship, religious institutions and the sex industry. The emergence of the Ukrainian Femen at least supported by two things, domestic and international. Domestic factors consist of democratization and Barbie lifestyle emerging in Ukraine and international factors that include the globalization of information and the ratification of the International Convention CEDAW. These factors support the assumption about the emergence of Femen as postmodern, in a quadrant of the second wave of feminism. This movement has been falsely interpreted as the existence of oppression of female identity in the midst of patriarchal structure.

International audience; This article analyses how the French written press has covered feminist movements since the 2000s. It shows how the mainstream media produce a national narrative that is significant of gender- and race-based power relations. It highlights how this narrative is characteristic of an ethno-racialization of sexism in the mainstream media, a process that represents specific culprits and victims of gender inequalities.; Par l’analyse de la médiatisation des mouvements féministes les plus médiatisés depuis les années 2000 dans la presse écrite (Ni putes ni soumises, Femen, Osez le féminisme! et la Barbe), cet article rend compte de la manière dont les médias participent à la production d’un récit national porteur de rapports sociaux de genre et de race. En donnant à voir des victimes et coupables particuliers d’inégalités, ce récit est significatif d’un processus d’ethnoracialisation du problème public du sexisme dans les médias d’information généraliste.

Submitted by Neusa Fagundes (neusa.fagundes@unioeste.br) on 2017-09-14T19:50:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernanda_Pereira2017.docx: 5617667 bytes, checksum: 7464d2275155471c14b79e4bc6458bac (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-14T19:50:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernanda_Pereira2017.docx: 5617667 bytes, checksum: 7464d2275155471c14b79e4bc6458bac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-14 According to the french Discourse Analysis (AD), formulated by Michel Pêcheux, discourse is an effect of meaning among interlocutors, a meaning that occurs within a given discursive formation (FD), and determines what can and should be said. In a society already used to the historical struggle of the Feminist Movements for equal rights and in which the body (both male and female) is exploited commercially, daily, by the media, it seems strange that the exposure of the half naked female body in protests, is still percieved as offensive and negative. The feminist group FEMEN, which fights against patriarchy in its three forms (materialized, according to the group, in sexual exploitation of women, dictatorships and major religions), is constantly attacked, during its protests, by exposing their half-naked bodies. Through the identification of the elements used by the activists in their protests and the analysis of the statements that “dress” their bodies, this work aims to understand how the discursive memory is reclaimed, producing meaning. Thus, this dissertation seeks to understand the discursive processes that allow the production of these effects of meaning, and how the naked body constitutes itself as a discursive materiality, displacing the bodies of the activists from the ideal of femininity (according to Kehl (2016)) or submission, docility, with the sole purpose of maternity) built throughout the nineteenth century. Through the analysis of the images of three protests, which question the control exercised over the female bodies, by the main religions of the Western world, this work aims to understand how the naked female body, when used as a vehicle of protest, produces effects of meaning that break up with the current FD that determines what a woman can and should be, within the ideals that persist in our society. In this sense, the naked body, when used to denounce and question control practices over the women’s body, produces discomfort, estrangement, rupture with these discourses. Para a Análise do Discurso (AD) de linha francesa, formulada por Michel Pêcheux, o discurso é efeito de sentido entre interlocutores, sentido que se dá dentro de uma determinada formação discursiva (FD), e que determina aquilo que pode e deve ser dito. Em uma sociedade já habituada à luta histórica dos movimentos feministas por igualdade de direitos e na qual o corpo (tanto masculino quanto feminino) é explorado comercialmente pela mídia, diariamente, parece estranho que a exposição do corpo feminino (semi)nu em protestos, seja vista de forma ofensiva e negativa. O grupo feminista FEMEN, que luta contra o patriarcado em suas três formas (materializadas, segundo o grupo, na exploração sexual da mulher, nas ditaduras e nas principais religiões), é alvo de agressões, durante seus protestos, por expor seus corpos (semi)nus. Por meio da identificação dos elementos utilizados pelas manifestantes em seus protestos e da análise dos enunciados que vestem seus corpos, objetiva-se compreender como a memória discursiva é retomada, produzindo sentidos. Assim, pretende-se com esta dissertação compreender os processos discursivos que possibilitam a produção desses efeitos de sentido, e como o corpo nu se constitui como materialidade discursiva, deslocando os corpos das manifestantes do ideal de feminilidade (KEHL, 2016) de submissão, docilidade, tendo como único objetivo a maternidade, construído ao longo do século XIX e que ressoa ainda no século XXI. Por meio da análise de imagens de três protestos do grupo, os quais questionam o controle exercido sobre os corpos femininos (de mulheres) pelas principais religiões do mundo ocidental, busca-se compreender como o corpo feminino nu, quando utilizado como veículo de protesto, produz efeitos de sentido que rompem com a FD vigente que determina o que pode e deve ser uma mulher, dentro dos ideais que persistem na sociedade. Nesse sentido, o corpo nu, quando utilizado para denunciar e questionar práticas de controle sobre o corpo da mulher, produz o desconforto, o estranhamento, a ruptura com esses discursos tão estabilizados na memória da sociedade.

Dans la sphère publique, la nudité est toujours porteuse de signes. Symbolisant la vulnérabilité dans certains contextes, elle peut représenter la folie, la liberté, le désir de choquer, un appel ardent à être écouté. C’est pourquoi les militantes Femen, mouvement féministe activiste, utilisent leur corps comme principale arme de revendication politique, se mettant en scène les seins nus dans leurs manifestations. Malgré leur visibilité qui s’étend maintenant à l’échelle internationale, leurs méthodes de revendications restent très controversées et suscitent de nombreuses critiques. Mais au-delà de ces critiques, de quoi nous « parle » le mouvement Femen? Que nous dit-il sur notre société d’aujourd’hui, sur ses paradoxes, ses tensions et ses rapports de force? Ce mémoire a pour objectif de répondre à ces questions. Il est structuré comme suit : une première partie porte sur l’historique du mouvement et ses orientations ainsi que sur les principales critiques qui lui sont adressées. Cette section présente également le cadre conceptuel du mémoire qui s’articule autour de cinq grands points : la nudité comme outil de contestation politique, la société de l’image, le corps, l’apparence et la beauté, la «résistance urbaine spectaculaire» et enfin, l’engagement et le désengagement militants. La deuxième partie présente la méthodologie, une démarche de type ethnographique comprenant des entretiens semi-dirigés avec des militantes Femen et avec la fondatrice de la branche québécoise ainsi que de l’observation participante lors d’entrainements et de réunions formelles et informelles du groupe. Finalement, la dernière section présente les résultats du terrain. Ceux-ci mettent en évidence les nombreux paradoxes et contradictions inhérents au mouvement, lesquels nous apparaissent comme un condensé de grandes contradictions de notre société. Une société de l’image et du spectacle, où le corps, celui des femmes en particulier, a acquis une centralité particulière et paradoxale. Une société d’individus « libres » mais adhérant à des standards de beauté stéréotypés. Une société où les « causes », celles de la gauche et du féminisme notamment, ont du mal à s’exprimer de façon cohérente, entre autres parce qu’elles sont traversées de tensions internes où l’individu l’emporte trop souvent sur le collectif. Une société, enfin, où le religieux est imbriqué plus que jamais au politique, venant brouiller davantage les lignes de contestation., In the public scene, nudity always carried signs. Being a symbol of vulnerability in some contexts, it may also represent the madness, freedom, the desire to shock or even an ardent appeal to be heard in some cases. This is actually the reason why activist feminist Femen movement militants are using their bodies as the main weapon of political demands by featuring themselves breast naked in their events. Despite of the visibility of the movement that now extends internationally; their methods of claims remain highly controversial and are the source of several critical. But beyond all these criticisms, what is the Femen movement telling us? What is it telling us about today’s society, on its paradoxes, its tensions and power struggles? This thesis aims to answer these questions. It is structured as follows: A first part focuses on the history of the movement, its directions and the main criticisms addressed to it. This first part is also presenting the conceptual framework of the thesis that is built around five major points: nudity as political protest tool, the image society, the body, appearance and beauty, the “spectacular urban resistance” and finally, engagement and disengagement activist. The second part presents the methodology; an ethnographic approach including semi-structured interviews with Femen activist and founder of the Quebec branch as well as the participant observation during formal and informal trainings and meetings of the group. Finally, the last section presents the results of the field. These highlight the many paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the movement, which we appear as an overview of some of the big contradictions of our society. A society of image and show. Where body, especially women’s body has gained a particular and paradoxical centrality. A society of ‘’free’’ individuals who adhere to stereotypical standards. A society in which "causes", those on the left and feminism in particular, are struggling to speak coherently, in part because of internal tensions crossings where the individual prevails too often on the collective. A society where religion is nested more than ever, blurring once again the protest lines.