FEMEN: Help or Disservice to Muslim Women?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 7th, 2013
Good morning!
From the Huff Po:
International Topless Jihad Day: FEMEN Activists Stage Protests Across Europe
FEMEN strikes again: Topless protesters staged demonstrations near mosques and Tunisian embassies across Europe on Thursday to express support for embattled FEMEN activist Amina Tyler.
“We’re free, we’re naked, it’s our right, it’s our body, it’s our rules, and nobody can use religion, and some other holy things, to abuse women, to oppress them,” FEMEN member Alexandra Shevchenko said in Berlin, according to AFP.
“And we’ll fight against them. And our boobs will be stronger than their stones,” she added.
Tunisian student Amina Tyler sparked a massive controversy in mid-March by posting topless photos of herself on Facebook, with the slogans “Fuck Your Morals” and “My Body Belongs To Me, And Is Not The Source Of Anyone’s Honor,” painted on her body.
Islamist hackers responded with an attack on FEMEN’s Tunisian Facebook Fan Page, replacing topless photos with quotes from the Quran. An Islamic preacher even stated that Tyler could be stoned for her act of defiance.
In support of Tyler’s plight, FEMEN labeled April 4 “International Topless Jihad Day” and organized protests across Europe.
“This day will mark the beginning of a new, genuine Arab Spring, after which true freedom, freedom without mullahs and caliphs, will come to Tunisia! Long live the topless jihad against infidels! Our tits are deadlier than your stones!” the group wrote in a statement on its Facebook page.
AFP reports that about two dozen activists showed up in Paris, where FEMEN has its international headquarters. The women tried to reach the Tunisian embassy but were deterred by police.
Five activists gathered near an Islamic cultural center in Brussels, Belgium, Euronews writes. And according to the Gazetta Del Sud, Italian womenprotested outside the Tunisian consulate in Milan, carrying signs that read “Free Amina” and “Bare Breasts Against Islam.”
The Interfax News agency adds that the protests spread to the Ukraine, with police detaining FEMEN activists in Kiev. “The FEMEN activists drove up to the entrance to the mosque in a car, where they were arrested by the police,” Interfax cites the police reports.
Activists and journalists have expressed concern about Tyler’s well-being in recent days. While her lawyer said the young woman was doing fine, several reports suggest Tyler is being held by her parents in seclusion.
“No, it’s not fine. Amina is with her family but that’s not ‘good news,’ as some newspapers earlier wrote,” journalist Caroline Fourest wrote in a blog for HuffPost France. “No one close to her, none of her friends or people in her support network have seen her or heard that she was free, free to move and speak,” Fourest added.
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What do you think? Is FEMEN helping or doing a disservice to Muslim Women? Blog me your thoughts.
Readers: It has been brought to my attention that some of you may see my blog differently than I do. I tried to post the video that is included in the article that I posted. Although I included it, I am not able to see it in the admin end, only when I preview it, and then the text runs along the right side of it, as it did in yesterday’s post. It is not my intention to show it that way, but it is the only way I can include it otherwise it disappears. HOPEfully when it posts you will see it too. If not, and you want to watch it, click on the article title and you can view it on the Huff Po. Thanks for your patience with this.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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April 8th, 2013 at 5:57 am
Straight Muslim men and lesbians are just SHOCKED, I tell you. SHOCKED!
April 8th, 2013 at 5:58 am
Hmmmmmm… I wonder why they chose Stockholm and not Cairo, Tunis, Triploi??? ;) These (brave) topless feministsy wouldn’t pull this stunt in Moscow either as Putin and most of the Russian public has recently shown they are not very sympathetic to public acts by groups like this
April 8th, 2013 at 6:02 am
Most Muslim women have standards, high standards for themselves. How many women (regardless of faith or culture) in the world choose to go topless, choose to do with their body what their base ego desires want? Few. Few.
This smut IS orientalist and nuevo imperialist. These “femen” only believe what their ego tells them and not what rationale or understanding of cultural relativism explains.
I, as a Muslim woman, born to atheist Americans reared in a “feminist” “hippy” family know all too well these pitiful and prejudiced views. I, also, now know well the beauty of modesty, piety and hijab.
We Muslim women choose to use our Minds and character instead of our bodies to gain attention. We don’t need to be saved by radicals from any influence. Viva Hijab!
April 8th, 2013 at 6:03 am
you’ve gotta start the war somewhere sometime…..right and fair can’t be ignored forever and the most restrictive laws have to be the first ones broken
fighting to keep money and jesus outta politics….and muhammad and budda too
April 8th, 2013 at 6:05 am
Isn’t it a kinda cultural obligation when a women is assumed to be of loose morals if she shows too much skin, or assumed oppressed if she wears a scarf?
April 8th, 2013 at 6:08 am
John, if they did it in Cairo, Tunis or Tripoli you know where they’d go …. straight into the slammer
April 8th, 2013 at 6:21 am
The Red Secret to Stroke Prevention
I hope you like tomatoes.
Why?
In a recent study that looked at various antioxidant nutrients that help protect the body’s cells from damage, the superpower in terms of stroke prevention was a nutrient that’s abundant in tomatoes.
In fact, this antioxidant is what gives these plump garden beauties their appealing red coloring.
Its name is lycopene.
ANTIOXIDANT CONTEST
Now, you’ve probably heard of lycopene before because we’ve known for some time that it—and the tomatoes it comes from—can help prevent cancer and promote immune health. But you may not be aware of the new research linking lycopene to a reduced risk for stroke. So here’s the good word…
Participants included 1,031 men who were 46 to 65 years old and healthy at the start of the study. Researchers from Finland measured the men’s baseline blood levels of five antioxidants—alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamin A and vitamin E—then divided the men into four quartiles based on their levels of each antioxidant. Participants were followed for a median of 12 years, during which time 67 suffered strokes.
What the data analysis revealed: Compared with men in the lowest quartile for lycopene blood levels, those in the highest quartile had 55% lower risk for stroke.
This held true even after researchers adjusted for known stroke risk factors such as age, body mass index, smoking, LDL cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.
The other four antioxidants measured did not affect the likelihood of having a stroke.
This suggests that it wasn’t just an overall healthy diet that spared the men from stroke, but rather something specific to lycopene.
According to Jouni Karppi, PhD, the study’s lead researcher, there are numerous ways in which lycopene may lower stroke risk—for instance, by limiting cholesterol’s negative effects on the body…reducing inflammation…preventing blood clots…and/or improving immune function.
TOMATOES AT EVERY MEAL?
Now, this study is interesting, but it doesn’t prove that eating tomatoes lowers stroke risk—because there may have been other reasons that the men with the lowest stroke risk had the highest lycopene levels, such as differences in how peoples’ bodies process antioxidants. But even so, it still makes good sense to eat lots of fruits and vegetables—and to focus on those with abundant lycopene to help guard against stroke.
Tomatoes are the richest food source of lycopene. While raw tomatoes (such as those you toss into your salad or onto your sandwich) are excellent, it is interesting to note that cooked tomatoes may be especially beneficial.
That’s because the cooking process breaks down tomato cell walls and releases even more of the lycopene. And concentrated tomato-based products, such as sauce and paste, provide particularly high levels of the nutrient.
What if tomatoes disagree with your taste buds or aggravate your acid reflux? Don’t worry. You also can get lycopene from apricots, carrots, guava, papaya, pink grapefruit, red peppers and watermelon.
It isn’t clear whether taking lycopene in supplement form would be helpful for stroke prevention. Dr. Karppi recommends getting the nutrient from food because lycopene in its natural form may be absorbed better and, with food sources, you get other important nutrients at the same time.
There’s no official recommendation on exactly how much lycopene we should get. Dr. Karppi’s advice: As a simple safeguard against stroke, consume lycopene-rich foods every day.
Source: Jouni Karppi, PhD, department of medicine, Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio.
April 8th, 2013 at 6:31 am
Michelle, I don’t want to change the subject but I couldn’t get in the other day to comment. I just want to say that I hate those jerks who take their time leaving when you want their spot. What does it do for their egos?
April 8th, 2013 at 6:41 am
Heh. I heavily support boobs over stones.
April 8th, 2013 at 6:44 am
Some stupid muslim women made brainless by Quran are against any help by outsiders. As if they could get their idiotic muslim men to wake up by themselves. If that were possible they would have done it by now.
April 8th, 2013 at 6:48 am
First, a rant about Muslim vs. Arab:
May I just be the not-first to say that the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia, which is not Arab?
Also, contrary to many people’s beliefs, Iranians are not Arabs. Nor are anyone who are not Arabs. Lots of people aren’t Arabs. Like Pakistanis. Bangladeshis. Uighurs. Turks. Bosnians. Sudanese.
And so on.
It’s really not that hard, folks. It’s a very diverse religious group. Kind of like Christianity, which I’m sure you realize is practiced by non-Europeans! WOAH.
Secondly, a rant about how Muslims get all kinds of shit for being Muslim:
While there are SERIOUS structural issues in the Muslim world with regards to women, there are also Muslim countries where women do well. Yes, there are shitty things about women in the Quran.
But we could spend days discussing the shittiness of the Torah and the Christian Bible as well. Western religion as a general rule doesn’t exactly treat women super duper awesome in most cases. Yet, Western women didn’t need big strong outsiders to save them from their religion, right?
By trying to be their “protectors” one is doing exactly what we claim to hate about the patriarchy here: being patronizing. Support Muslim women, don’t try to replace or co-opt them.
April 8th, 2013 at 6:58 am
Ari, true, there are more muslims that are not arab, but arab men are particularly brutal to women when it comes to using it to dominate, enslave and generally make women their sex toys.
Everyone seriously discussing the issue knows that women have no rights much less equality under islam. It is a cult for men who want to enslave and control their female population.
Any woman who supports being in that situation is either brainwashed or too scared to voice otherwise. Men pretend that women don’t mind while demonstrating and going to war to get more liberty for themselves.
All this complaining about outside interference by muslim women is nothing more than a male orchestrated effort to prevent international help for muslim women who BUT FOR THAT HELP will NEVER get any type of equality from the sick men that use that fucked up cult to enslave us.
Thank you for all and any help you can do to bring attention to our plight and get these animals off our necks.
If I could demonstrate, I would but as with most of muslim women, we would be killed by the government or the men who call themselves our fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins when they are but our masters and rapists.
Qalat
April 8th, 2013 at 7:01 am
Ari, Sorry but you can’t just call the Bible and Torah shitty and gloss over it like all the religions treat women the same. They don’t. Outside of Orthodoxy (which is batshit), Judaism has become almost entirely egalitarian.
I can’t speak for Christianity but please don’t act like the Muslim religion doesn’t have serious and unique problems when it comes to women
April 8th, 2013 at 7:02 am
Well Jon Stewart had a very interesting point to make. It’s because Judaism is old.
Judaism is atleast 3000 years old. Christianity is 2000 years old. Islam is only 1400 years old.
When Judaism was only 1400 you can bet reform and conservative was not around and there was a lot of strict application of the torah.
Christianity was a nightmare in the 15th century.
Why Islam any different?
April 8th, 2013 at 7:10 am
O, thank you Qalat for your openness. In my country the men have forced some of us to from a “Muslimah Pride Day.” They are forcing us to claim we like what islam forces us to do for men. Here are the instructions.
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post pictures of your beautiful selves, whether you wear hijaab, nikaab or not. This is an opportunity for Muslim women to get a say and show people that we have a voice too, that we come in many different shapes and sizes that we object to the way we are depicted in the west, we object to the way we are lumped in to one homogenous group without a voice of agency of our own.
==================================
Those “we’s” are our men with whips, sticks and other weapons held to our bodies if we don’t pretend to be upset with the support our western sisters are showing with their demonstrations across Europe.
Thank you, thank you for everything my sisters that you do.
Charika
April 8th, 2013 at 7:17 am
Muslim are trying to give the impression that muslim women are not helpless and that we have an option to their cruelty imposed upon us by their cult religion islam. WE DON’T!
Those of us not passively indoctrinated by the purveyors of the evils of islam are forced by misogynistic patriarchy under the guise of religion to terrorize their female population. Those are the facts.
Then the men complain of aggression, violence, and prejudice against muslim communities. Please continue the pressure. Islam is an evil cult dedicated to enslaving women for the sexual pleasure of men.
Shir Khan
April 8th, 2013 at 7:18 am
Larry#14, um, so following that train of thought, we should normalize and put up with pretty much any horror that newer religions like scientology or mormonism can throw at us, correct?
April 8th, 2013 at 7:20 am
The Torah has plenty of bad things with regards to women, but the Talmud in particular can be downright nasty about women. The reason that women are relatively comfortable in Conservative and Reform Judaism is because we have chosen to ignore the nastier parts or interpret them less strictly.
But one can make a serious argument that strict interpretations of the Torah and Talmud in particular almost guarantee that a woman have reduced standing in the community. And don’t get me started on how Deuteronomy treats women.
As for Christianity: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
April 8th, 2013 at 7:21 am
Not every Christian is foolish enough to take the words of Paul as the words of Christ, let alone God.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:23 am
Men who use religion to control women come in all nationalities and races. Women should do as we are doing fight them all.
Oh, and Michelle, one of my pet peeves is having to sit patiently while some jerk takes his/her time leaving a parking space just to be an asshole.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:25 am
Not at all Gene, I never said that. I said there is benefit to understand the context and that religion is dynamic, not static.
I for one am agnostic, and I believe that religion is a very easy tool to control the masses (if not, the easiest tool). But the point of the post that Islam is unique to its problems, which is actually not true. The ironic part of this is of course the use of Islam has regressed when colonialism and the cold war came into play.
And I also think people would benefit a lot if they educated themselves about Islam (I know I did, but like I said, I am agnostic). But again I am the type of person who does studies a religion before I pass judgement.
When all the stuff came out about Scientology, I was of no opinion, until I read reports and studied it for a while (and actually, I don’t really care about scientology as a belief, I just have a problem with its application). But tbh, people seem to tolerate the Amish pretty well though.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:28 am
James, Scripture is scripture. But, here’s Corinthians: “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman”
“If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her.” (Hey, not a bad punishment!) Deuteronomy.
Shit, I could spend days on Deuteronomy, since I know it fairly well from Hebrew school.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:32 am
the Hebrew stuff was included in the Bible in order to attempt to provide lasting cultural context for Jesus’s ethnic background, since hey without that serious misunderstandings arise. Hell even WITH the included volumes people just plain don’t get it, so at least the logic was sound.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:33 am
Awesome protests. You go girls! Talk about non-violent protests!
April 8th, 2013 at 7:42 am
Michelle, you are truly a woman’s champion. I’m proud to know you. I also liked this Link because it showed that the women had to put up with the law as they protested peacefully.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/04/femen-stages-a-topless-jihad/100487/
They had to make sacrifices to support their sisters in need. You do that Michelle with your blog by resisting the cultural pressures around you and publishing a no holds barred uncensored blog.
Robert,RT
April 8th, 2013 at 7:50 am
What irks me is the lie put forward by muslim men pretending to be muslim women or men speaking for them that millions of Muslim women actually feel liberated by Islam.
Just where does that liberation come from? Could it be that muslim women are free to obey their men, or free to be their sex slaves, or free to be ordered around by any male in the household, or maybe it’s that great honor of being free to be killed by any male family member who feels we have dishonored the family name.
That must be it “Honor Killings” have freed us to live in another life as this one can be taken at the whim of a male member of our family. Oh REJOICE!!!!!!!
April 8th, 2013 at 7:53 am
I am so tired of muslim men faking that muslim women are “liberated” by her hijab. Someone needs to explain to the LSOS that the issue isn’t people wearing them, the issue is people being forced to wear them.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:56 am
Wait, what? I’m a Jew who went to Hebrew school as a kid so that I could do my bar mitzvah. Not sure how we got to that. Hahaha.
But c’mon, the “old testament” can be pretty brutal to women.
April 8th, 2013 at 7:58 am
Ari, if you’re going to quote Jewish and Christian scripture in the same remarks it’s not a stretch to assume you’re meaning to lump them a bit together.
But yeah of course the “Old Testament” can be pretty sketchy. I’m regularly annoyed by right-winger here in the US who are all “blah blah BIBLICAL MARRIAGE” and its like dude where are all your concubines at?
I guess I should qualify my statements by disclosing that I am a Gnostic Christian who is formerly Jewish…except in the eyes of most “other” Jews in which case bewildered expression I’m still Jewish as a matter of fact what am I talking about?
April 8th, 2013 at 8:04 am
Thank you Nazad.
===========================
The issue isn’t people wearing them, the issue is people being forced to wear them.
The issue isn’t the rules of religion, the issue is people being forced into the rules of religion.
The issue isn’t the people who follow Islam, the issue is the people who force Islam (or any religion) onto other people.
Muslim men know this, but they ignore it. They attempt to pretend that muslims choose to worship by that cult. Only weak men, who are incapable of meeting women on an equal footing want to be a part of that cult.
Women are forced into it. We have no voice on the matter. So for men to be arguing that any woman benefits from being a muslim is ludicrous. The are as you say Michelle. LSOS.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:05 am
James, my point was that both sets of scripture have awfully misogynistic parts. But, since Christianity is the most prominent religion in the West, it’s often useful as a baseline for discussion of Western religious theory versus that of the Muslim world. And since both the old and new testament factor in, they’re both fair game.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:10 am
Muslim men ignore the fact that while some muslim women may feel liberated many are nothing more than property to their husbands, and the law in arab muslim lands reinforces that while denying them freedom.
These protestors do not seek to infringe on the women that feel liberated in a hajib. They are demonstrating for the women that are systematically subjugated under islamist rule and are considered less than men.
The islamists simply don’t want ANY woman to have real freedom and even if a few are happy, hundreds of millions are not because they are nothing more than sexual slaves to their masters, any man who occupies their world.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:12 am
Who are the muslim women telling people they are happy in that cult? They don’t need to say anything because there are plenty of muslin men more than willing to tell the world how happy we are.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:14 am
Ari, my counterpoint is that the four gospels tend to eschew the bulk of the misogyny and that later additions such as Paul’s letters or many translations are where it stems from. Take Augustine, for example…his writings are incredibly influential – even to non-Catholics who have maybe never heard of him – and affect the doctrine and dogma of many today.
If we loop this back to Islam, the same thing seems to be going on with local, tribal, or other cultural interpolations being the cause for many of the problems that many people these days wind up perceiving as being intrinsic.
It is simply all about men, using religion to own women and keep them in servitude.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:15 am
Michelle, my only comment is that new picture of you is STUNNING!!!!!!!!!!!
April 8th, 2013 at 8:16 am
I’ll second that.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:17 am
We Greeks take pleasure in the observance of beauty. So may I also second that opinion. Stunning.
April 8th, 2013 at 8:18 am
Okay, she’s beautiful. The topic please.