"Femen is a company, not a social movement", says former leader of the group in Brazil [View all]
The girls of the self-entitled "sextremist" movement Femen, founded in Ukraine in 2008, were able to attract global media attention during their five years of activism, but also gathered detractors across the world. Beloved by the guys and the publishers - the beauties' topless sell like hot cakes - the activists are once again facing a controversy.
Last week, the movement faced a turnaround situation with the closing of its Brazilian office, one of the most active within the group. In a press release, the Ukrainian headquarters revoked the authorization for the Brazilian leader Sara Winter to use the name Femen, the word "sextremism" and the symbols of the movement, such as the logotype and the flower crown. Femen alleges Sara misused the funds they sent to her.
The news site Opera Mundi had access to the transfers made to Brazil in name of Anna Hutsol (founder of the group), accounting exactly U$ 3,050.00 between June 2012 and last February. According to Sara, the transfers were used to pay for airline tickets and organization of protests.
Hutsol also threatened to "reveal the real reason why Sara joined Femen". The Brazilian says she hears the same threats from the Ukrainians since February but that she doesn't know what they are referring to.
After being removed from the group, Sara decided to counter-attack and made several critics to the Ukrainian leaders. "Femen Ukraine works as a company or a marketing agency. It is not a social movement. They may have had real good intentions in the past, but nowadays it is entirely corrupted."
Sara confirmed an accusation made last year by the former activist of Femen Brazil Bruna Themis. In an interview Bruna said that one of the reasons why she left the group was the demand from the Ukrainian headquarters that the activists should not be overweight. At the time, Sara denied the accusation. Now, she took back and explained that Femen "always want beautiful activists in the front line for marketing strategy."
According to Sara, "
Femen's) attitude is extremely chauvinist and reinforces patriarchal society." Femen Ukraine says this is a way of attracting people to feminism.
A recently disclosed internet chat between Sara and Inna Shevchenko (Ukrainian leader) shows Inna was worried about the physical shape of the activists. " The protest) in the embassy was not sexy because the panties were too tight and the girls appeared to be fat. Be aware of that", warned the Ukrainian to the Brazilian.
In another chat in the social networking Vkontatke, the most popular in Ukraine, Inna told Sara that "classical feminism has died". According to Inna, feminists make conferences but can not share their ideology with society. Sara said that "Inna doesn't understand feminism was not born 40 years ago" and considers disrespectful to say the classical movement has died. "Femen can not see itself as superior to classical feminism. This is oppression as well and discrimination."
Read more (in Portuguese):
http://www.brasildefato.com.br/node/13101
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