A Feminist Revolution Seems a Long Way Off
But from Ukraine’s bra-shy activists FEMEN to Russia’s 2012 presidential dark horse Valentina Matviyenko, women’s rights may be about to move up the agenda in Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s FEMEN are arguably Eastern Europe’s most recognizable feminist activists. Since teaming their anger on issues such as sex tourism and female representation in politics with topless protests, they have been a major talking point both at home and across Europe.
Inna Shevchenko has been part of FEMEN for just over a year. Originally from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, she takes part in the topless demonstrations. “Going to a protest and stripping is hard,” she said. “You have to build up to it, and prepare by first attending other protests and becoming more committed.” She added that this commitment was rewarded the first time she protested topless and was detained. “When I was arrested, the other girls followed us to the station. At that point I understood that we are a group and that they will stand by me,” Shevchenko said. At the time of her arrest she was protesting against Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s cabinet, which does not include a single woman.
As well as lacking a voice in the cabinet, women are underrepresented in the Ukrainian Parliament overall, holding just 32 of the 450 seats (7.1 percent). In contrast, the current State Duma in Russia includes 63 women (14 percent of seats)—an impressive increase from the previous sitting which had 44 women (9.8 percent).
Founded in 2008 and led by economics graduate Anna Hutsol, FEMEN began its topless protesting mid-2009, initially speaking out against sex tourists in Ukraine. The group claims to number 300 activists. While it undoubtedly found an efficient way to attract attention to its cause, some have criticized it for using naked women to protest against the sex industry, particularly since Hutsol herself does not protest topless. Hutsol is dismissive of this criticism. “If a woman decides to use her own body to make a point it is not sexist, or exploitative, it’s returning to her sexuality,” she said.
The nature of the protests certainly boosts the group’s effort to generate wider discussion of the sex industry in Ukraine, which is growing at an alarming rate. The police estimates that prostitution was worth 1.5 billion dollars in 2009, more than double the 700 million dollars the industry generated in 2008.
Hutsol sees raising awareness as the first step in combating the problem, and complains that many girls in Ukraine do not know that prostitution is illegal. “The main problem in Ukraine is that many things aren’t discussed openly. At least we have got people talking about these issues. Girls now know what sex tourism is; it is therefore harder to become a victim,” she said. The FEMEN leader hopes that this increasing awareness will reduce what she describes as widespread “double moral standards” about female nudity and exploitation in the country. “Mothers here think: ‘if my girl’s a Playboy model, that’s normal. But if she’s taking her clothes off to protest for women’s rights, that’s not normal’,” Hutsol said.
However, the government has done little about the growing number of sex tourists flooding Ukraine. Sex tourists, mainly from Western Europe and Turkey, continue to take advantage of Ukraine’s visa regime and poor economic conditions. The practice is so widespread and accepted that people hand out flyers advertizing “massage parlors,” which are in fact brothels, unhindered on the main thoroughfare in Kiev, when it is closed to traffic at weekends.
Shevchenko said that those who recruit girls to work in the sex industry are also open about the process. “Girls are recruited in broad daylight,” she said. “A lot of them come from smaller cities where there is no work and education is expensive, or there are not enough educational institutions.” Hutsol accused the police of protecting the brothel owners. “Although the penalty for pimping is five to six years in prison, prosecutions are rare,” she said. FEMEN also opposes government plans to legalize prostitution ahead of 2012, when Ukraine will co-host the European Football Championships with Poland. “This would only strengthen the industry,” Hutsol said.
Body politics
But the Ukrainian authorities are losing patience with FEMEN, which has this year disrupted high-profile trips to the Ukrainian capital by Iranian delegates and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Shevchenko said that the police have changed their attitude toward the protestors and stepped up punishment against them. “We used to have a good relationship with the police, they used to protect us. But after our last protest we spent a night in the cells. The police told us that next time, we’ll be detained for 15 days.” Although protesting topless is not illegal in Ukraine, the girls are being arrested for hooliganism. Both Hutsol and Shevchenko also said that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) is taking an increasing interest in their activities. “The SBU has talked to girls to try to scare them into giving up protesting, and they have threatened me,” Hutsol said.
FEMEN claims there has been a distinct change in its relationship with the authorities since Viktor Yanukovich became Ukrainian president in February of 2010. “Before Yanukovich was elected, the police even protected us. Now they’re arresting us and that order is coming from above,” said Hutsol, adding that they have no powerful figures to protect them and rely on publicity and their high profile at home and abroad to prevent further harassment. “The press is our only protection; they will notice if we are beaten up or killed,” Shevchenko said, although she admitted that the group is much more popular in the foreign media than in Ukraine.
However, Yanukovich’s short term in office has coincided with an explosion in FEMEN’s public profile. And it is debatable whether the previous administration would have responded calmly to topless students harassing an Iranian delegation in order to protest the death penalty handed to Shahla Jahed, an Iranian woman accused of murder. The group shows little sign of being intimidated, though, and is planning more events as well as an eventual bid for mainstream political representation. “We are planning to become a political party,” said Hutsol, adding that Ukrainian women have become apathetic.
It is perhaps surprising that FEMEN has appeared in Ukraine, a country which until February this year had a female prime minister—Yulia Tymoshenko. Arguably the most influential female politician in a post-Soviet country, Tymoshenko is also Ukraine’s richest woman. But FEMEN said that aside from being a female face in Parliament, she had little impact on women’s rights in the country. “Tymoshenko didn’t try to help and protect women, she was just interested in money,” Shevchenko said, adding that Ukraine needs a real party fighting for women’s rights.
Part of FEMEN’s strategy for creating such a party is increasing its regional presence in Ukraine, and capitalizing on interest from girls in other cities, who have already asked FEMEN to bring the protests to their hometowns. Shevchenko said that this is currently beyond their financial means. “At the moment we don’t have the resources to protest throughout Ukraine, but eventually we hope to expand within the country and abroad,” said Shevchenko, who is also in contact with girls in Belarus.
But attitudes among Ukraine’s current political elite indicate that turning this group into a meaningful political force is a long way off. In March of this year prime minister Azarov, responding to questioning about why he named an all-male cabinet, said: “It’s not a woman’s business to introduce reforms in Ukraine.”
There is also public opinion to consider. Could FEMEN convert existing sympathy for its causes into votes, as well as winning over those who describe its activists as “mad,” “self publicists,” and “lacking a clear agenda?” Cooperating with any existing political party has been complicated by what FEMEN says are attempts to buy or hijack its protest power. “Some parties contacted us and wanted to ‘buy’ our protests—pay us to protest or not protest against certain things,” Shevchenko said.
FEMEN has various sources of funding, including the sale of mugs and t-shirts on its Web site. It is also funded by private investors, including Germany’s DJ Hell and Jed Sunden, the man behind KP Media, who established the Ukrainian capital’s main English-language newspaper The Kiev Post. “We get more financing from Europeans than Ukrainians,” said Shevchenko. “Students from Europe have made some donations through our blog. They paid for a video camera so that we can film our protests.”
Blonde ambition
The solidarity Shevchenko has seen on behalf of her fellow protestors and supporters is not always shared by her family, however. “In Ukraine it’s a very serious matter to get arrested. My family is worried about my safety,” she said, adding that it is particularly hard for her mother. “She doesn’t understand why I’m doing this, she lives in a small city and it matters to her what the neighbors say.” This hasn’t prevented Shevchenko from taking part in a protest in her hometown of Kherson, which she said with a laugh is famous in Ukraine for its watermelons.
And it is not just Shevchenko’s life back home that has been affected by her decision to become part of FEMEN. Currently in her final year of university, she was working in the press department of the Kiev City administration before being sacked for being part of FEMEN. She is hopeful that she will graduate, despite pressure from her university to stop protesting, and threats from the police to put pressure on her professors. She is not optimistic on how future employers will respond to her protests, however, and already believes that FEMEN is her only real career option. “When I graduate, FEMEN will be my main job,” she said.
On the surface, the situation in Russia appears more positive. Three out of Russia’s 17 cabinet ministers are women—Tatyana Golikova, Elvira Nabiullina and Elena Skrynnik. Although quotas for female members of political parties haven’t yet been introduced in Russia, female representation in Parliament is double the level that it is in Ukraine.
In February of this year Natalya Komarova became governor of the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District, bringing the number of women who head federal subjects to two. She follows in the footsteps of Valentina Matviyenko, who has been governor of St. Petersburg since 2003. Matviyenko was initially elected by popular vote, but subsequently re-appointed by a presidential decree following the abolition of elections for federal subject heads in 2005.
In 2008 Matviyenko was touted as a possible president before then-President Vladimir Putin threw his weight behind Dmitry Medvedev. And Matviyenko’s name often crops up when analysts gaze into the crystal ball to surmise who will be next in the president’s armchair after the elections in 2012.
What’s more, if the situation for women in Russia ever deteriorates, FEMEN have already established links with a group in Sochi
