Topless women activists march against fascism in Paris
FEMEN, a radical feminist group, took to the streets of Paris to march topless on International Women's Day to protest against fascism, Trump and 'rotten' patriarchy
Even as tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Paris on International Women's Day, 40 topless women activists belonging to a radical Ukranian feminist group, with only US or Russian flags or a Swastika painted on their chests, marched along with them.
The women activists, who were part of the feminist group, Femen, had only a Nazi Hakenkreuz and phrases painted on their chests that read, “Fascist Epidemic”. They were wearing military caps and were in a battalion formation. They demanded a “Feminist Europe, not a Fascist one!”
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March against fascism
On the FEMEN’s official Instagram page, the group had posted about the demonstration: 'HEIL MUSK! HEIL TRUMP! HEIL POUTINE! Forty FEMEN activists stormed into the usual March 8th demonstration for women’s rights. Wearing military caps, they formed a battalion embodying the fascist threat that is currently engulfing the world. Internationally, in both Europe and the United States, reactionary offensives are multiplying'.
It further read, “Massacres in Ukraine on one side, oppressive decrees on the other—the planet is dominated by two power-hungry, manipulative madmen obsessed with money and control.”
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Criticism of Trump
The group also criticised US President Donald Trump. They alleged that his erasure of the terms ‘women’,’queer’ and ‘gay’ from government websites, as well as, the restriction of reproductive rights, and ‘tradwife’ rhetoric on the rise, is a sign of a ‘violent and toxic backlash’ reflected in the media.
FEMEN’s goals
FEMEN claims on its website that it is an international women’s movement of “brave topless female activists painted with slogans and crowned with flowers" and its goal is to defeat patriarchy.
This group follows what they call as Sextremism. This is an act of female sexuality rebelling against patriarchy, embodying these principles in ‘extreme political’ direct action events.
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What they want to do is to dismantle the patriarchal perceptions of female sexuality and aim to repurpose it for the ‘great revolutionary mission’.
Practising Sextremism
According to these activists, "Sextremism is women’s mockery of vulgar male extremism, its bloody mayhems, and its cult of terror.”
They added that Sextremism is non-violent, but is a highly aggressive form of provocation used as an all-powerful demoralising weapon that undermines the foundations of bygone political ethics and the ‘rotten’ patriarchal culture.
