Topless Jihad Day

Femen outside a Berlin mosque. (source: femen.org)

This week my favourite angry feminists declared Thursday 4 April Topless Jihad Day.

The Ukranian-based radical feminist group Femen, announced a jihad on Islamic attitudes to women and their bodies - the attitude that says that women need to keep themselves covered so as not to tempt men.

Protests around the world

Activists in Paris, Berlin, Rio, Milan, San Francisco and Montreal bared their breasts, painted with slogans, outside Tunisian embassies and mosques.

The protests were in support of Tunisian student Amina Tyler, who last month posted 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. This was not popular.

Islamist hackers responded with an attack on Femen's Tunisian Facebook page, replacing topless photos with quotes from the Quran. Tyler was threatened with death by stoning.

Montreal (source: femen.org)

Is the extreme way the right way?

I'm not an extremist, and I'm not sure how far this particular protest is really helping promote equality for Islam women. It has been argued that the nature of their protests could actually set back the cause they are fighting for in the Middle East, which would be hugely sad for millions of women. 

But let's not forget that when it comes to equality, the softly softly approach often just doesn't work. 

Emmeline Pankhurst and her fellow Suffragettes were extremists - and if they hadn't used extreme tactics it's very unlikely that we would have reached the level of equality we have today in the UK. Maybe we would have achieved the vote by now - just - but I'm guessing that things like maternity leave and equal pay would still be distant dreams. 

Sometimes you need to fight to get what you're owed. And equality between the genders is something we're owed worldwide. 

Femen

One of the many great things about Femen, is that they are pretty much guaranteed good coverage (coverage, get it?), because what newspaper will pass up the opportunity to publish a photo of an attractive woman baring her breasts in the middle of the city, for a political ends? You don't often get politics and boobs in one snap. 

Some of the coverage they get may be gratuitous, but their message, that women's bodies belong to them, and them only, is not. Whether you agree with the way they operate or not, you have to admire them for having the balls, or tits, to stand up for what they believe. 

Men who hate women and women who hate men

The anti-feminists 

There is a movement (I hope it's not a growing movement) of Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), men who campaign for the rights of men, who feel that feminism has gone too far and men are now being attacked from all sides. One particular man has started a pro-men party to try and redress the balance: The Pro-Men Party (this is a really entertaining article about it).

I’m not sure why these guys are so scared of women, after all, we're not trying to deny them the vote, take away their reproductive rights and sentence them to a live of domestic slavery.

These men aren’t so much anti-feminists as misogynists. The sub-text (sometimes just the text) of their argument is that women should relinquish the vote, get back in the kitchen and stop whinging. I don’t want to do that. I'd be terrible at it. I can promise you that I'm a far more useful member of society going out to work than I would be mooning over the kitchen sink or whatever. Those web pages aren't going to write themselves you know.

Radical feminists v fun feminists

And then there are the radical feminists, worrying that feminism is becoming a bit too fluffy. They cite a brand of 'fun feminism' advocated by people like Caitlin Moran, who invite men to join them in striving for and celebrating equality between the sexes.

Anti 'fun feminist' Julie Bindel writes in the New Statesman: "If men like a particular brand of feminism, it means it is not working." She argues that "fun feminists", like Moran, ignore hardcore feminist issues such as rape and female genital mutilation (FGM), in favour of a more socially acceptable brand of feminism.

I don't think we should ignore these issues - I think feminism needs to tackle them head on. But I also think it's time for feminists to realise that women no longer have the monopoly on feminism. I know that sounds a bit insane, but I think if men like feminism, it's probably because it's working. It means we're winning the argument and convincing men that equality between the sexes is the way to go. High five sisters.

Radical feminists who try and alienate men are doing far more damage to the cause than the fun feminists like Moran. Feminists such as Bindel give rise to the kind of man-hating stereotype beloved of the Men’s Rights Activists that I talked about at the beginning. To my mind, the radical feminists, who hate men, and the MRAs, who hate women, are two sides of the same coin. It's like the point where communism and fascism come full circle and end up being the same, so beautifully demonstrated in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Men aren't the enemy (and neither are women)

So there are men who hate women, and women who hate men, and then there are the rest of us.

Men have done some terrible things to women in the past, but women have also done some terrible things to women. Why should right-thinking men today pay for things that men have done in the past to restrict the freedoms of women? It wasn't their fault.

Without ignoring this issues at the centre of radical feminism, such as oppression, subjection and violence against women, I think feminism should be able to include men. If men like it, that doesn't mean feminism has sold out. It can mean it's won them over, and that's pretty amazing.

Instead of trying to exclude them, the next step on the feminist agenda should be to encourage men to join the fight for sexual equality, so there are even more people fighting to stop the suppression and mistreatment of women all over the world.