Fuck Your Flowers is an annual activist demonstration that is held on 8th of March each year. The goal is to get women out of the stereotypical feminine boxing of females and stand up against the patriarchy that is heavily implemented in the Russian society and in the world at large.
Russia has a long tradition of giving women flowers, chocolate and champagne on the 8th of March.
Why is that? In other countries this flower-giving on such a day is seen as something old-fashioned and often offensive,
while Russians are still practicing this strange action as a main tradition. We want to shine light on this bizarre
custom and revolt against it. Together with you!
In Russia there is a certain expectation of women and their so called femininity. These expectations can get unhealthy and add pressure and stress in our already pressing society. It is time we Russian women step out of this box we are being put in, and reclaim our own sense of being. We do not owe prettiness or femininity to anyone. Our beauty does not define our skills, intelligence or personality! Erin McKean said it so well in her text You Don't Have to Be Pretty:
"You don't have to be pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'."
- Erin McKean
It is about time we see this tradition for what it actually is. A patriarchic construction designed to keep Russian women in their place as "the other sex", described by Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex:
"One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. No biological, psychic, or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine."
-Simone de Beauvoir
But the pressure of being feminine is the least of our concerns. In president Putins speech for 8th of March
he insisted that Russian women are great at multitasking.
Not only holding full jobs but also taking care of
the children and the home, implying that without russian women Russia would not make it. This brings us back to
the main point of the Fuck Your Flowers campaign. If we women are so important, why don't we earn the same wages as Russian men?
Russian women actually earn 30% less than
their male counterparts!
It is time to revolt and say no thank you to the flowers, champagne and chocolate,
and start demanding equal rights on 8th of March. This is, after all, what this day is supposed to be used for.
Russian women are underrepresented in important political organs, the decisions they make are thus mostly at home,
and the result is a lot of free labor automatically put on Russian womens shoulders.