Bodies as Billboards

FEMEN—the Ukrainian feminist group that made topless protest their signature—operated on a straightforward logic: a bare chest with a slogan painted on it is impossible to ignore. Founded in Kyiv in 2008, they had turned themselves into an international fixture by 2012, crashing political summits and religious ceremonies across Europe with a combination of genuine fury and an obvious awareness of how cameras work. The argument about them was always the same argument running in two directions at once—is the body being reclaimed here or commodified? Are these women making a feminist point or just getting naked for attention? The honest answer is probably some of both, and also that the question itself is slightly beside the point. Protest that goes unnoticed doesn’t function as protest. Theirs, manifestly, did.