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NEWS
Friday, February 21, 2014
The New Hampshire
Radical Femen leader plans US feminist outpost By ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press
PARIS — She quickly seduced French officialdom after arriving from Ukraine, winning political asylum within a year of her application. Her visage, framed in blond hair crowned with flowers, helped inspire France’s latest postage stamp. Few French people knew back then that they were dealing with a radical soldier for the feminist cause, in town to organize the ranks of women for a radical insurgency with bare breasts as weapons. The sweet start for 23-year-old Inna Shevchenko is souring. The defiant chief of the Ukraine-born Femen movement now risks up to five years in prison and a 75,000euro ($103,000) fine for bashing brand new bells at Notre Dame Cathedral a year ago — and allegedly damaging one. Dressed only in pantyhose, she and eight others were celebrating the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The trial for the nine was postponed from Wednesday to July 9. A second trial begins March 14 for a single Femen activist for simulating abortion in Paris’ famed church, Eglise de la Madeleine. Femen has orchestrated a raft of bare-breasted protests with a range of targets: near the Vatican, in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, near the Grand Mosque of Paris and in several churches outside France, including at Christmas Mass at Cologne Cathedral. There, a single topless woman with “I am God” painted on her chest briefly jumped onto the altar. Boldness is clearly in Shevchenko’s blood. She fled Ukraine in 2012 after taking a buzz saw to a huge wood cross, risking prison. Today, she is nonchalant about that risk. “Of course, I was scared” after the Ukraine protest, she said in
an interview with The Associated Press. “But this is not that fear that will make you stop your activity. We are scared to not be able to continue our activity.” “We are not a political party who wants to find fans. We are not a rock band,” she said. “We’re a bunch of angry women.” Shevchenko has announced plans to expand Femen’s footprint from nine countries mostly in Europe to the United States, most likely in New York or Washington, D.C. The group’s Ukraine headquarters has been shut down.
nearly three months of deadly protests now against President Viktor Yanukovych’s government. In December, Femen activists in France urinated on portraits of Yanukovych in front of the Ukraine Embassy. British sociologist and feminist scholar Kristin Aune sees Femen as part of an apparent resurgence of feminist movements, but suggested that Femen’s protest tactics are out of synch with the West. “In a way, they have taken an old-fashioned feminist view,” said Aune. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, feminists said religion is terrible but
“ We are this group who is irritating our
enemy. We do not care about how many people will not like us.”
Inna Shevchenko
Chief of the Ukraine Femen movement “We are this sort of detonator,” she said. “We go where the problem is.” That includes houses of worship, which she says are responsible for patriarchal laws that subjugate women. The plan to add a U.S. branch coincides with a wave of criticism of Femen and questions about why Socialist President Francois Hollande officially approved a stamp representing “Marianne,” the national symbol since the French Revolution, that resembles Shevchenko. One conservative lawmaker wants the stamp withdrawn. Another conservative wants the group declared a sect, which would make it illegal in France. Hundreds of people from the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group Civitas to far-right supporters held a protest in Paris recently against Femen. Femen, founded in 2008, sees itself as the cutting edge of feminism, “ringing the [alarm] bell” as it did in Ukraine, well before the
later saw it as possibly liberating.” In Aune’s opinion, some Femen causes are more worthy than others, such as fighting sexual tourism as the group did in Ukraine. But Femen’s heavy focus on religion, including Islam, in protest operations in Western Europe and in Tunisia may reflect a failure to fully understand the “diversity that exists in Christianity and Islam,” she said. Femen’s most audacious activist was a Tunisian who spent more than two months behind bars last year after her arrest in May for allegedly scrawling the word Femen on a cemetery wall. Amina Sboui, who also posted topless photos of herself online, is also the best known Femen dropout; she renounced the group because of what she called its anti-Islam stance. Femen has about 40 activists in France who take part in protests and 350 members who help out, Shevchenko said, adding that it has 250 activists in nine countries. The large building north of Paris that became Femen head-
quarters two months ago — after the group’s Paris digs mysteriously burned down — features a training room to keep activists fit and where 100 pushups every Saturday are de rigueur. The walls are covered with Femen slogans like “My Boobs, My Bombs,” ‘’My Body, My Gun,” “We Are Soldiers Of Freedom.” Critics claim Femen thrives on media attention more than improving the lot of womankind. Yet one leading feminist network in France was careful not object to Femen tactics. “We think our techniques are, perhaps, more effective,” said Anne-Cecil Mailfert, spokeswoman for Dare Feminism. “But what is certain is they are the target of attacks by the right and extreme right. .... Anti-feminists will do everything to make them look like a dangerous, crazy movement.” Femen is mostly ignored in other European countries where protests are staged, including Spain, West Germany and Sweden. In a recent TV documentary series, Swedish feminist Belinda Olsson questioned whether the movement has a clear motive or was just a bunch of “exhibitionists showing their tits.” Two women who claim to have left Femen France have harshly criticized the movement and its leader in interviews with two French publications, both speaking anonymously. One told the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur that Shevchenko behaved like a queen. It failed to upset the Femen leader, who conceded the movement is organized in a strict hierarchy with her on top. “Some women can feel like they’re in the army. We act like an army, yes,” she said. “There are soldiers, but every soldier can become a general.” For Shevchenko, the medium is clearly the message. “We are this group who is irritating our enemy,” Shevchenko said. “We do not care about how many people will not like us.”
Foundation awards $1m grants to nonprofits By HERBERT G. McCANN Associated Press
CHICAGO — The MacArthur Foundation has chosen seven nonprofits for grants of as much as $1 million to recognize their success and future potential in work ranging from promoting the rights of Nigerian women to researching anti-crime programs in Chicago, the foundation announced Thursday. The groups chosen for the 2014 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions — whose annual grants range from $750,000 to $1 million — are all previous recipients of the Chicago-based foundation’s largess. They were chosen for this award after foundation staff reviewed how well each was run, MacArthur Foundation President Robert Gallucci said. “These are stars in my view — organizations that stand out in the work that they do,” Gallucci said. “In every case, getting this award from the MacArthur Foundation, I’m told, helps them in their work
and it adds to their effectiveness and their credibility.” Five groups will receive $1 million each. They are the Washington-based National Housing Trust, which preserves and improves affordable housing; NatureServe, an Arlington, Va.-based group that promotes environmental conservation; New York-based investigative reporting group ProPublica; the Citizen Lab of Toronto, which helps monitor political activity that could affect human rights; and the University of Chicago Crime Lab, whose focus is on urban crime rates. Grants of $750,000 each were given to Nigeria’s Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative, which promotes and protects the rights of women, and the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, which seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics. Crime Lab executive direct Roseanna Ander said she was “very excited” about the award. She said the lab uses scientific research to evaluate the effectiveness and im-
pact of strategies used to combat violence and crime, with the ultimate goal of providing facts that inform policymakers on which programs do the most good for the dollars spent. The grant, she said, will help make the laboratory nimble and able to expand its reach beyond Chicago and a few other cities. “What’s helpful about the money is that we will be able to turn on a dime and move on a project immediately,’” she said. “We won’t have to find a funding source before taking on a project.” The Citizen Lab of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto helps other nonprofits monitor governmental political activities in cyberspace and the human rights violations that could result. The organization gained prominence in 2009, when it issued a report documenting cyber espionage that targeted and compromised computer systems in the Offices of the Dalai Lama. The espionage was linked to China’s hacking community.
Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert said he was blown away by the MacArthur award. “We look in places where government and companies don’t always want us to look,” Deibert said. “To remain impartial, we don’t accept funding from the state. ... We seek out research grants, which come and go and are finite. Something like this helps us create an endowment which can offset core operating costs.” Gallucci noted that he recently visited the offices of ProPublica, calling it an extremely well-run organization whose goals are to “shed a light on accuracy and fairness in the media and exposing fraudulent business practices and improve the democratic system.” The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent group that hands out about $230 million in grants annually. It may be best known for its “genius grants,” $625,000 no-stringsattached fellowships that have gone to hundreds of people since 1981.
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In Brief Iowan fired for using forklift on candy in vending machine MILFORD, Iowa — An Iowa man has lost his job and unemployment benefits for using a forklift to get a candy bar from a malfunctioning vending machine, state records say. According to state unemployment records released last month, Robert McKevitt, 27, of Spirit Lake, was working at Polaris Industries’ warehouse in Milford when the incident occurred last fall. McKevitt wanted some candy, so he deposited $1 in a vending machine for a 90-cent Twix candy bar, The Des Moines Register reported. But the candy bar got snagged on a hook and wouldn’t fall. He banged it and rocked it, but that didn’t work. The state records said McKevitt then commandeered a forklift, picked up the machine at least six times and dropped it about 2 feet onto the concrete floor. Three candy bars fell. McKevitt was fired five days later. McKevitt told the newspaper recently that he never lifted and dropped the vending machine but did use the forklift to move the machine back in place. “That machine was trouble,” McKevitt said. “They fired me, and now I hear they have all new vending machines there.” In a ruling released last month, a judge denied McKevitt’s claim for unemployment benefits, saying he willfully disregarded his employer’s interests.