My Body is My Manifesto!

Theresa O’Keefe is a Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. In her research, she talks about feminism, gender, social activism and radical social change. She is the author of several articles and the book "Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements" (2013).

The article "My Body is My Manifesto! SlutWalk, FEMEN and Femmenist Protest" by Theresa O’Keefe was published online in the peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal Feminist Review in 27 of June in 2014. Using an intersectional analysis to look contemporary forms of women´s popular protest SlutWalk and FEMEN to bring questioning use of the gendered body in struggles for women´s emancipation. The author explains the importance of understanding the role of the body in movements that go against system of oppression, such as racism patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, etc. In both protests they use body as a political weapon. She explains in the text how both movements fail to ‘(re)appropriate patriarchal signifiers’ and how by failing to do that they end up reinforcing these signifiers and their associated norms.

SlutWalk and FEMEN are both driving movements of feminism. SlutWalk started After Toronto police officer suggested in talk about campus rape that to solve campus rapes would be that young women would  “avoid dressing like sluts”. People in SlutWalk protests are often dressed using sexualised items like fishnets and corsets. The author brings up the difficulties of using word slut. In the text O´keefe references to Dines and Murphy “SlutWalk might think that proudly calling themselves “sluts” is a way to empower women, they are in fact making life harder” for young girls (O´Keefe, 2014, p.7)

FEMEN group fights to protect women from repressive political regimes. Their protest tactics are getting more attention then the actual issues they seek to address. FEMEN even go further in this direction by choosing women for their protest actions, whose bodies fit the heterosexual male vision of sexy attractiveness. They are activists who resemble more of celebrity look like “mostly white, with long blonde hair, able-bodied conventionally attractive” (OKeefe, 2014, p. 8) and use their topless body as a product to sell their message.

The author criticises “both of SlutWalk and FEMEN relates to the preceding in that these ´movement´ ostensibly lack any structural analysis”.  These protests represent only part of female group. They do not give change to different cultures to be part of them as they can´t relate to way they are protesting.

In my opinion, this text is a great reading for those who are interested in feminist movements. The text gave me different aspects of the movements that I did not know about. The ideas behind the SlutWalk and the FEMEN are good, but the way they implement can make it worse, especially for young women. It is therefore essential to think about more appropriate ways of feminist self-expression and protest. As Pamela Church Gibson already broached feminism fashion design aspect and raised problematic new trend pornostyle (Church-Gibson P. 2014) and I think these feminism protest play a part in it. 

Also fashion Designers use their fahionshow for the benefit of bringing out women´s rights. Like example Karl Lagerfield did in Chanel Ready To Wear Collection Spring Summer 2015 show, where end of the fashion show models and Karl Lagerfield walk through the catwalk protesting Women´s rights.

References:

O’Keefe, T. (2014) ‘My Body is My Manifesto! Slutwalk, Femen, and Femenist Protest,’ Feminist Review, 107, pp. 1-19. 

Church-Gibson, P. (2014) ‘Pornostyle: Sexualised Dress and the Fracturing of Feminism,’ Fashion Theory, 18: 2, pp. 189-206.

Elman S. (2015) Chanel Ready To Wear Collection Spring Summer 2015 Available at: http://pinstake.com/chanel-ready-to-wear-spring-summer-2015-archives-sara-elman/aHR0cDp8fHNhcmFlbG1hbl5jb218d3AtY29udGVudHx1cGxvYWRzfDIwMTR8MTB8NDU2MzY5MDMyXmpwZw==/ (Downloaded 10 October 2016)