Le corps exhibé : un texte singulier du féminisme quatrième génération

Body activism is a new argumentative strategy used by feminist militants. As Fraisse points out, “the body is obviously part of fantasies and images at the heart of debates on sex and gender” and the body is also “a speaking materiality”, “a language of emancipation” (2014). This article explores and analyzes feminist nudity understood as a discursive strategy of resistance. I will pay particular attention to the body performances of Femen, a feminist group created in Ukraine in 2008, recognizable by its activism as regards toplessness. I will first describe the rhetorical particularities of this movement: by choosing postures attributed stereotypically to women, usually in a discriminant way, Femen invests the body politically, and operates a transformation of the body’s performances and constraints. I will discuss goals and interpretations of this argumentative strategy. I will also reflect on the discursive processes of creating or deconstructing stereotypes about the body. Moreover, I will envisage the various ways of repoliticizing the body, considering it as an instrument of communication and argumentation and as a material to understand society