“My Body is My Weapon”. Confrontation, Feminist Rage, and Bodily Performance in FEMEN’s Radical Activism

FEMEN, a transnational feminist movement, describes itself as an organisation using a “highly aggressive form of provocation”, its motto is “My Body is My Weapon”, and it advocates for the ideology of “sextremism”, which focuses on mobilising sexuality through the usage of the activists’ nude bodies in protests, and frames protest actions around women’s rights (Channell 2014; FEMEN 2025). Most feminist scholars focus on studying peaceful feminist activism, some suggesting that violence and aggression are incompatible with the feminist ethos. They adhere to “feminist purism”, thus disacknowledging the possibility of violent and non-peaceful feminist pluralities (Zebadua-Yanez et al. 2023). Despite FEMEN’s commitment to non-violence, their aggressive tactics – the storming of public buildings and destruction of public property – are puzzling. I ask: Why do FEMEN transnational activists use confrontational and aggressive tactics in their 2025 protest actions? I investigate how activists understand feminist values when pursuing militant tactics, interrogating how gender influences dominant norms about civility and incivility. I scrutinise the meaning of violence, who is allowed to be violent, and in what ways. I also investigate activism’s affective roots, exploring emotions and the performance behind FEMEN’s embodied actions. I follow a case-study research design, investigating the motivations of FEMEN activists to pursue militant actions across different countries: Brazil, France, Germany, and Spain. As such, I conducted 6 semi-structured interviews with activists and sampled 157 Instagram text posts and images uploaded on official FEMEN channels in 2025. Channell, E. (2014). “Is Sextremism the New Feminism? Perspectives from Pussy Riot and Femen”, Nationalities Paper, 42(4): 611-614. FEMEN (2025a). “About us”, https://femen.org/about-us/. Zebadua-Yanez, V., Owen, R., Kesse, A., Cruz, M. and Chaparro-Martin, A. (2023). “Critical Exchange. Sexualised Violence And Feminist Counter-Violence”, Contemporary Political Theory, 22(4): 1470-8914