Elżbieta Korolczuk: I think it’s partially a polarisation of the political scene, where you have these very strong emotions, where you have changes in almost every area of social and political life, and that makes some people feel that this is the right moment to go out into the streets and, let’s say, openly support fascist views. But at the same time there is also a strong opposition towards these kinds of ideas. As for women, for quite a long time we were told that the situation would get better, that we were getting there, you know, we would become civilised and more gender equal. But then last year there was a moment when we felt “no, this is not going to happen”. What was actually taking place was an attack on women’s rights, on women’s political rights, but also on their bodies. [...]
Inna Shevchenko: Right, I think it is important to see the international dimension, the fact that the feminist movement became so international, also in our case, or at least in the case of these two movements. When Femen went international for us personally it was a big surprise, we didn’t aim to build an international movement. For us it was a personal and local fight, as we were addressing our personal problems as Ukrainian women in Ukraine. Then we saw that women from Spain, from France, from Brazil, from Tunisia, from Turkey were writing to us and saying “I have different issues in my country, but your tactic speaks to me because my body is also victimised, objectified. As a woman I’m not safe in this society, I also want to join. I want to have Femen in Turkey, I want to have Femen in Spain”. So this was a form of approval, it was proof that women’s rights are a global issue, because there is a global attack on women’s rights, it is a global world-wide attack on women and that is why the fight of women becomes global, a worldwide defence of common goals, common aims, with all the diversity – which is beautiful indeed – and differences. We are very different, and sometimes we have very different goals, but we are also united by one idea, united by one aim, and this is something we share. So with regard to solidarity and the transnational movements we are seeing today, I think we have proof that there are so many issues that we share as human beings, that we have more things in common than differences between us. What we share is actually more, and the question of solidarity and united fights, transnational fights and transnational politics, makes much more sense when we think of ourselves as equal human beings, when we think about the fundamental human rights we all want – the same rights, not rights for women in the Middle East different from those for women in America. No, we are equal human beings in different parts of the world and we share so much that having a transnational fight makes much more sense.
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