Oksana Shachko

Let's be together, and let's fight together!

Oksana Shachko (Ukrainian: Оксана Шачко; 31 January 1987 – 23 July 2018) was a Ukrainian artist and activist with FEMEN. She was one of the founders of FEMEN in April 2008, along with Anna Hutsol and Alexandra Shevchenko.

Quotes

Interview with Luxemburger Wort (2015)

As quoted in Interview: Speaking of Femen-ism (3 August 2015), Luxemburger Wort.

• The most powerful thing young students with neither money nor power can do, is to do activism and use journalists and their cameras. When people learn about the problems and discuss them, things start to change.

• The picture of a naked girl is the most peaceful, but also the most unveiling image you can create, so it is very powerful. [...] We live in a patriarchal system where the female body is totally controlled and used. Women are ashamed of their bodies, and this is a deep problem. We are slaves of men because we do not control our sexuality.

• Feminists often tried to be men: they cut their hair, did not use makeup, walked like men, hid their breasts, used men's clothing... they became men and we thought that was a dangerous path for feminism. [...] We are not ashamed of our bodies. We are proud that we are women, that we are different from men. This is the greatest thing we have achieved with Femen, we have put the woman in the centre of feminism.

• It was great to come so close to Putin and say 'fuck you' straight to his face, almost two years before other Ukrainians understood what he was doing to the country.

• I am human, sometimes I feel afraid and sometimes I am worried because even though I am not afraid to spend a few years in jail, I understand that my mother and friends will be worried. I always discuss this in my head. [...] I'm more scared to live in this country, in this world, and do nothing: to spend life too afraid of everything, too afraid to speak or go to certain places, to just be in a normal work and don't create anything for the next generation. In my understanding, that is much more scary than to go to jail.

• They can kill you in one second, you understand that you are a very very small person. But in the same time one thinks: you are a small person that can make such a big point that even Russia will send their secret service after you!

• The people should always control the politicians' decisions, but after the Maidan revolution they relaxed and believed the president would change things. Because of wrongful decisions of Poroshenko and Putin, yes both of them, we now have a crisis, and a war that nobody believed could become so big and difficult to handle.

• Going into this system means you cannot be against it. It's good to keep a non-governmental free organisation without money from the government, and without having to play the political games. Just to be free and to have the possibility to discuss and control each decision of the political system from the streets... It's the best and most powerful place to be.

• Femen is the feminist, the girl with the Ukrainian sign, the flowers in the hair, the naked boobs with painted slogans, and in comfortable boots to run and make action in front of the enemy on the streets.

• I'm very happy about what we did, what we do, and what we will do. That's why I again say to women from all over the world, and especially from Luxembourg: Let's be together, and let's fight together!

External links

• Femen (in Ukrainian)
• Oksana Shachko on IMDb