'Our Mission is Protest': FEMEN, Toplessness and Female Spectacle
Journal: PEARL (University of Plymouth)
Year: 2018

This thesis examines the dramaturgical strategies of protest employed by the contemporary Ukrainian protest group, FEMEN. In doing so, it draws from theories of protest as performance, outlined by Richard Schechner (1993) and Baz Kershaw (1999). The all-female group are arguably most well known for their use of the topless female body in protest. As such, this thesis will explore FEMEN’s use of toplessness in relation to Mary Russo’s notions of ‘female spectacle’ (1994), considering the ways in