P Riot: whose freedom, whose riot?

[seabeyond]

Before learning more about the case, the first thing that made me frown was the fact progressives were hailing P Riot as the “new feminists”, despite that their name is fairly insulting to women. It is certainly not apolitical, since we are in a context in which pornography has deeply colonised our movement and the only groups that the media presents as feminist are those that either insult us or reclaim the very instruments of our subordination, that is, male sexual violence, PIV, pornified femininity and all the associated harmful cultural practices. These tactics of destroying the meaning of feminism form part of a general worldwide backlash against women.

I found it suspicious that P Riot was getting so much media attention, even for pseudo feminist standards. You can measure the degree of feminism of an action by how men react to it, and if men collectively cheer and celebrate it, then you can be pretty sure there’s something wrong about it, or that it doesn’t somehow support our liberation from men. And as far as I can recall, even the slutwalks didn’t get as much coverage or public appraisal. What was it that men liked so much about P Riot?

Well, under closer inspection I discovered that the high level of coverage was related to – though indirectly – promoting men’s right to women’s sexual subordination and the pornification of our movement. The arrested women actually form part (and are victims of) a mixed anarchist group called “Voina” (meaning “war”), founded in 2007 by two men called Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaïev, who regularly engage the women in extreme and degrading women-hating pornography as part of their public “political stunts”. Some of Voina’s men have actually already been incarcerated in 2011 for hooliganism – which is punished for 7 years of prison in Russia, but their bail was paid for by an artist named “Banksy” four months after their imprisonment. (More information can be found here and here)

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“How to Snatch a Chicken: A Tale of How One Cunt fed the Whole of the Group Voina… in honor of their hero, a 19th century political philosopher/prisoner, Voina’s president’s wife dubbed “Vacuous C*** With Inconceivably Huge Tits,” smuggled a chicken out of a grocery store in said “Vacuous C***…” [the journalist comments] : First, the troupe searched for a large and fresh enough chicken. Then, the store isles and CCTV cameras were blocked by the members of the group holding up banners with “FUCK WHORING YOURSELF!” smeared on them in I-don’t-want-to-know-what. The blockade allowed Vacuous C*** to promptly stuff and smuggle the poultry out of the store, which was then presumably cooked and eaten.

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Now what does this mean for us, what can be understood from the media’s silence about Voina’s pornographic exploitation of women, when all the attention is focused on promoting P Riot as our modern heroines? The effect and intent is political. While all the public eyes are set on the Russian representatives of the state and religion as the ultimate fascists, dictators and machos, we are made to forget that the primary oppressors and tyrants of these particular women are the men closest to them, that is, Voina’s men and their use of pornography to demean, oppress and enslave their female comrades. They are their everyday police, the fascists and colonisers breaking the women’s resistance, occupying their souls, sentencing them to public humiliation and subordinating them through sexual abuse. We are made to forget that these women are doubly victimised: first victims of the violence by the men of their own group, they are then punished and held responsible for the abuse committed against them.

http://radicalhub.com/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-whose-freedom-whose-riot/


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this is an important read, all of it. i didnt buy into it when i saw all the group of women was about presenting themselves in the manner, that men are wanting to address women. that never works for me. that time on du, men used the title to the band to truly be offensive, too often.

isnt this interesting? any surprise? not for me.

[niyad]

1. k and r-bookmarking to read later

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Objective Feminism or Pravda

Aside from the Junior High fascination with the name, this was a story about the state overreaction to a flash mob event in a church.
I seriously doub't the Western Press and Artists considered the history and links to Voina in deciding to go with the story.

Seems to me the message is; Don't worry that they are in prison for 7years. See they are not really feminists, so they deserve it.
In other words the scrutiny of the western press is making the govm't uncomfortable so a little misdirection is called for. IMO

[ismnotwasm]

3. You know that is an interesting POV

I had read about the background of pussyriot, and I hadn't considered that kind of manipulation.

[seabeyond]

4. men used these women or women with degradation at every point to get this message out.

kinda like the excuses we hear in advertisement and it is all about the money. fuck the women.

and to further make their statement, the men made sure they were not part of the sentencing again, allowing the women to take the punishment for their interest.

it may mean little to you.

it means something to me.

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. And it also appears spun to inflame feminists

First let me say that I am glad to read the OP. Both reading it and looking into a few details has been very interesting. Clearly Voina is exploiting women to get their message out. And we note that PR is not spelled in Cyrilic so it wasn't intended for domestic consumption in Russia but for raising our english speaking interest. We should recognize that both Voina and the Kremlin are engaging in a propaganda war to influence English speaking audiences. And I suspect this piece was edited by the later because;

We are implied that Tolokonnikova is supposedly in Kiev with a chicken a year after her Moscow section and the Kiev section split. And there is no confirmation that she was there.

St. Petersburg, in which a woman stole a chicken from a supermarket by stuffing it in her vagina, is sometimes cited by detractors of Pussy Riot. However, there is no evidence that members of Moscow-based Pussy Riot participated in this action

It also appears that only two of the supposed 11-15 members of PR are members of Voina and believed to be women of 20-33yrs of age. And we have Tolokonnikova's letter from prison denouncing her husband for claiming to be spokesperson for PR.