Women on corporate boards better decision-makers than male directors: study

Shocking i know! Really can Anyone/anyone be surprised by this? -EJ

From The Financial Post;

Women who sit on corporate boards are more likely to “rock the boat” and be more open to new ideas than their male counterparts — skills that often translate into better decisions and financial success for the company, according to a new study.
The survey, recently published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, found that of the 624 board directors polled in Canada, women were more likely to use “co-operation, collaboration and consensus building” when dealing with complex decisions.
While male directors more often made decisions by using “rules, regulations and traditional ways of doing business.”
Study co-author Chris Bart said Monday that his research showed that the way women operate as directors often contributed to a company’s success, raising the question of why women are still in the minority in Canada’s corporate boardrooms.

“Why would governance, nominating committees and board chairs not want to have that skill set, that competence available to them in abundance?” asked Bart, a professor of strategic management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University.
“It’s no longer just a question of it being the right thing to do, to have women on the board... it’s the bright thing to do.”
The finds, part of a larger study conducted between 2004 and 2012, presented morally conflicting scenarios to board members, asking them to solve them and explain how they came to their conclusion. Of those surveyed, 75% were male and 25% were female.
Bart, who did the research with Gregory McQueen of A.T. Still University in Arizona, says the answers from female directors showed that they were “less constrained” in their problem-solving skills than male directors.
It also found that women were more likely to take into account interests of multiple stakeholders and viewed fairness as an important factor in their decision-making.

“Women seem to be predisposed to be more inquisitive and to see more possible solutions,” he said. “This quality makes them more effective corporate directors.”
A recent study by TD Bank found that women only make up 11% of board members at companies on the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which represents more than 240 of Canada’s largest companies by market capitalization.
Nearly half (43%) of the companies on the index reported no female board member and 28% only had one. Bart says the reality is that the “old boys” culture is still alive and well in corporate boardrooms across all sectors.
“Men are pack animals and they are very much quick to recognize the hierarchy of the alpha males in the group,” he said. “They would be very unhappy with people coming in with different values or views to the board.”
Bart says the study signals that boards, investors and shareholders, all benefit when there are more female directors.
“There’s a huge pool of qualified, available women who would certainly be eligible based on their experiences to fill the boardroom seats,” he said.
“(Companies) drum up all sorts of excuses as to why women aren’t being appointed to the board but they’re no longer holding water.”

Women : Just Plain Smarter

From the Huff Post - EJ

Is It Time to Let Women Take the Wheel?

Posted: 03/04/2013 12:59 pm

Our world needs a change in leadership.

I'm not talking about the divide between Republicans and Democrats. I'm not talking about the UN or the influence of U.S. foreign policy, or the power struggles in the Middle East. At the end of the day, all of these may end up being less important than a fundamental division of power that goes back to the beginning of the human race.
What I'm talking about here is the gender balance: the distribution of power and leadership between men and women.
Despite the tremendous gains made by women over the last 100 years, women still represent only a tiny fraction of the leadership in this country and worldwide. It's true that this year we saw a historic (and welcome) upturn in the amount of women elected to government. There are 20 women in the U.S. Senate and 78 in the House of Representatives this year. Similarly, the Fortune 500 for 2012 showed that 18 women were CEOs of the top companies in the nation. This is up from 12 female CEOs the year before. It's good news, but it isn't enough.
While most companies have male CEOs and most leadership positions in the U.S. and abroad are held by men, the "CEO part of the brain" -- the prefrontal cortex, which governs things like judgment, organization and planning -- is actually stronger in women, suggesting that women, not men, are a better suited to hold positions of power and are probably better equipped to change our world than men.
This isn't idle speculation. Research we have been conducting at the Amen Clinics over the past 22 years bears this out.
The Largest Brain-Imaging Analysis Ever^[1]
My team and I recently completed the largest brain-imaging analysis ever conducted to evaluate the differences between male and female brains. The results confirm what many of us have known intuitively for decades: There is a big difference between the brains of men and the brains of women. Only, the differences aren't what some of you may think.
In this study, we took single photon emissions computed tomography (SPECT) scans of 26,000 people -- some 46,000 scans -- and compared them to see if there were any differences between the sexes. Included in the group were healthy males and females as well as men and women with a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions. What we found was stunning.
Women showed significantly increased cerebral blood flow in 112 of the 128 regions of the brain we measured. Put simply, this means that women generally have more brain activity than men. But what fascinated me as a psychiatrist and brain imaging specialist wasn't that women's brains were much more active than men's. I think a lot of us guys have known that for years. What I found particularly interesting were the specific areas of the brain that were more active in women -- areas that show women may indeed be better equipped to lead our world toward meaningful change than men are.
Why Women Make Better Bosses (and Leaders)
The first thing my team noticed was that the inner CEO (the prefrontal cortex) of women is much more active than men. This area of the brain governs things like judgment, forethought, organization, planning, empathy, impulse control and learning from the mistakes you make. These are the very qualities needed to successfully manage a company, lead a nation, mediate crisis, and get people working together toward a common goal.
This strength in the prefrontal cortex also points to a possible explanation for the lower incidence of ADHD, antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, and possibly incarcerations (women are 14 times less likely to go to jail than men).
In addition, women showed increased activity in the hippocampus. Men, if you've ever wondered why your wife or girlfriend never forgets anything, here is your answer. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that helps memories get into long-term storage. Increased activity in this area means that women generally remember things better for longer than men -- a useful tool for leaders and CEOs.
Understand these are only a few of the key areas of increased brain activity that stand out in women. In fact, men were more active in only nine areas of the brain, those primarily associated with visual perception, form recognition and object representation. Men are better at tracking objects in space, usually female objects that get us in a whole bunch of trouble.
Due to this increased brain activity, women tend to exhibit greater strengths in the areas of:

• Empathy -- the ability to share or understand the feelings of another
• Intuition -- knowing that something is true without knowing exactly why
• Collaboration -- the ability to work with other people toward a common goal (another key reason they make such great bosses)
• Self-control -- which, as mentioned above, points to their reduced risk of substance abuse, going to jail, or even getting a traffic ticket
• Appropriate worry -- women tend to worry about and take care of their health, their family, etc. more effectively than men. This point is actually quite fascinating -- in a large study, it was found that the "don't worry, be happy" people, more typically men on motorcycles, died earlier from accidents and preventable illness. Appropriate worry may be one reason women live longer than men.^[2]

Females are neurologically well-equipped to lead, manage and help us resolve the major problems of the world. Men have been in positions of power since the inception of the human race, and while the progress of civilization is impressive, we still face war, strife, power struggles, ill health and more every day. By understanding and honoring the female brain, we can empower girls and women to use their brains to change the world.
My hope is that you women out there use this program to unleash the extraordinary power of your female brain. Our world needs you and your brains now more than ever to lead us toward a more peaceful, more collaborative, more sustainable, healthier way of life.
This idea and the data from our study inspired me so much that my latest book, Unleash the Power of the Female Brain, is dedicated to it. In it, I show how women can supercharge their brains using the techniques we have developed at the Amen Clinics for better health, energy, mood and sex. The book gives women a complete step-by-step program that teaches them how to love their brain, overcome mood disorders and optimize brain function.
References
[1] Amen, D, Trujillo, M, Keator, D, et al. "Gender differences in rCBF in a healthy and psychiatric cohort of 46034 SPECT scans." Amen Clinics. 2013. In advance of publication.
[2] Friedman H, Martin L. "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study." 2011. Plume.

Beauty and Brains Part 1

Danica McKellar

"Occupation: Actress

Credentials: The actress best known as Winnie Cooper is said to be a member of Mensa with an IQ of 154. As an undergrad at UCLA, she co-authored a scientific paper that put forth what is now known as the "Chayes–McKellar–Winn theorem."

Smartest Moment: She's written three The New York Times bestsellers: Math Doesn't Suck, Kiss My Math, and Hot X: Algebra Exposed."


from complex pop culture
-EJ

Lysistrata: Female Power & Democracy

Women Emerge As Crisis Leaders In Macho Balkans

by The Associated Press

March 04, 2013 7:58 AM

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Women in the Balkans are leading a political revolution.
Historically given little say in the politics of the conservative region, they are increasingly taking top leadership posts, signaling that the traditional rules are changing as Balkan countries shake off their war pasts and move toward membership in the European Union.
During the bloody 1990s, many in the Balkans turned to warrior leaders, mostly male nationalists they thought would protect them from the ethnic conflicts that flattened cities and left over a hundred thousand dead. The new millennium has brought crisis in a different form: economic doldrums, naggingly high unemployment and glaring political corruption.
Encouraged by the EU and influenced by closer ties with the West, more and more it is women who are stepping in to change the old ways of doing business in the macho Balkans. Some see women as less nationalistic and more attuned to the needs of a new era — diplomacy, consensus, and compromise.
"Women have always been more successful than men, with all due respect," said Duska Latinovic, a nurse from the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. "Women are ... more sensitive, stronger, emotional, and in these rough times people need more of a heart."
Although overall gender equality standards are still far from those in Western democracies, strongly patriarchal Kosovo and the post-war Serb mini-state in Bosnia have both installed women in their top positions. Male-dominated Serbia and Montenegro have passed laws to increase the numbers of women in leadership positions, part of a slate of efforts to convince the EU they belong in the bloc.
"The power of women in the politics is a soft power," Atifete Jahjaga, the female president of Kosovo told the AP. "It is a positive change that our country and other countries in the region ... are making by giving a chance to women."
The latest political newcomer is the charismatic 43-year-old financial expert Alenka Bratusek, Slovenia's first ever female prime minister. While Slovenia has traditionally been more socially liberal than the rest of the Balkans, Bratusek's election last week was significant because it came at a moment of deep financial and political turmoil in the small Alpine state.
A rising star among veteran Slovenian politicians, Bratusek has been entrusted with consolidating the nation's economy and restoring confidence in state institutions, which have been badly shaken by the EU's broader financial crisis.
"It is important that this happened at a sensitive moment, a period of crisis," sociologist Milica Gaber Antic said. "It's a strong message to other women: 'We women can do it!'"
Many women leaders are already being lauded for steering their countries through the storms.
Croatia's former Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, took over the premiership in turmoil after her predecessor Ivo Sanader was forced to resign in 2009 in a whirl of corruption scandals, and then wrapped up her country's accession talks with the EU.
In 2011 in Kosovo — where Parliament members were recently issued notebooks with an assortment of sayings including one saying that "silence is the only treasure a woman possesses" — the little-known Jahjaga was elected the first ever female president, part of a U.S.-brokered compromise that put to a rest the bickering between political groups dominated by formal rebel fighters and murky business leaders.
Last week in the ethnically Serb mini-state in Bosnia another little-known female politician, Zeljka Cvijanovic, was proposed as the new head of government after the previous Cabinet resigned. That would make her the first ever woman to lead the government in any of the country's many levels of power-sharing, where no ministry in the central government is headed by a woman.
"As a woman, I hope to add a new flair and a new dimension to the institutions of Republika Srpska," she said in an interview.
Women accounted for only 1.6 percent of Serbia's Parliament in 1990, the lowest rate in Europe. But with strongman Slobodan Milosevic ouster in 2000 and the country's efforts to join the EU, the proportion of women has soared to 20 percent. Serbian law now calls for every third candidate on an election list to be a woman — a rule requested as part of EU reforms.
It isn't always the same story across the region. During the communist rule that followed World War II, authorities promoted women's inclusion in politics as part of the communist agenda of gender equality. At the time women served at top positions in the governments and were granted equal rights, jobs, salaries and education.
Bulgaria, for example, had the highest percentage of working women in the world in the 1970s, and women in top offices include the vice president, the parliament speaker, four ministers, and the mayor of the capital city, Sofia.
But, old habits die hard. Kosovo's Minister for European Integration Vlora Citaku acknowledged that "it is almost impossible to forget even for a moment that I am a woman — I've been reminded of that every day since I became a minister."
She said that being a woman in the male-dominated politics is "a tough life."
"First of all they ask you are you married? What your dad think of you traveling alone surrounded by all men?," she scoffed. "I mean, it's all these stereotypes ... There are certain duties that a woman must do in order to be 'complete.'"
And in Slovenia, shortly after Bratusek won Parliament's approval, political opponents tweeted that "her mandate will be as long as her skirt."
Bratusek responded simply: "I wish we women were no longer judged only by the length of our skirts."

Really Nice Video

A really nice Female positive video with Women overcoming fear to take and do what They please.

Beauty on the Street

On one of my weekly trips into the city (more on that later) i was mindlessly going down the sidewalk taking in the sights when suddenly my eyes locked upon those of a Goddess. To my surprise i realized i was being watched...by Her. As She approached in the opposite direction our eyes met. Hers of stunning blue, mine quickly averting to wander over long chestnut hair flowing down over her coat, bouncing as She strutted towards me.

Yet for an instant Our/our eyes had indeed met.

High refined cheekbones, full red lips, luscious being the only word that fits.  Perfect makeup and hair. Expensive wool coat and scarf, knee high boots, a young urban professional Women indeed.

She had "that ring of confidence" about Her.

Noticing that i had noticed Her she, slowly, averted Her gaze elsewhere, giving me a momentary chance to admire Her in totality. Then as my eyes wandered back to Hers i noticed She was again looking directly at me. my instinct when set upon by a Female gaze is to look down, bowing my head slightly. As i began to instinctively, submissively,  lower my head i noticed it. A slight, sly smile forming upon those perfect, inviting lips. 

We/we passed each other knowing a form of connection had been made. That instant chemical reaction of intrigue and attraction.

i being left to wonder if Her smile was one of simple acknowledgement of this or of something deeper.

Had She noticed my shy submissive gesture and enjoyed it?

Danika on the Pole

Awesome!


"The first woman in history to earn the top starting spot in a race at NASCAR’s elite Sprint Cup Series, Patrick will bring new eyeballs to Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500. She’ll lure in casual sports fans, women who don’t know a muffler from a manifold, and little girls in awe of the glamorous driver and her fast green car.
It’s an ambassador role Patrick has played since her 2005 debut at the Indianapolis 500, where she became the first woman to lead laps in the biggest race in the world. But it’s so much more now.
“You can only lead by example and I don’t necessarily want my example to step outside the box and be a girl in a guy’s world. That’s not what I am trying to say,” Patrick said. “But if you have a talent for something, do not be afraid to follow through with it and not feel different. Do not feel like you are less qualified or less competent to be able to do the job because you are different. Ignore that and let it be about what your potential is.” "

I crossed out that ridiculously sexist line. Maybe the writer doesn't know that today, Women buy more cars than men. Something the auto industry is scrabbling to adjust to. - EJ

Update: Danika finished a strong eighth in Sunday's race, leaving 35 males in Her wake. She also become the first Woman to lead a lap in the Daytona 500. All this after grabbing the pole. That puts Her in seventh place overall in the Nascar standings. i suspect She'll have the other boys in Her sights before long.

Back to Blogging...

i apologize for my long absence here on Female Future. Under Our/our new household arrangement Goddess has been keeping me busier than ever. "An idle male is a useless male" She repeatedly says to me. Being called useless by a Women is one thing that always cuts to my soul so i strive to never earn such a distinction. Goddess has keep my computer time to an absolute minimum over the past few months as She has vastly expanded my workload, keeping me ever busy and helping me adapt to this newish lifestyle. Last week however She declared Herself satisfied with my progress and performance to date. She has decided to allow me some additional computer time as a reward. She did however make it very clear that this is a privilege that will be limited, controlled and earned. It can be revoked at Her whim at any time.

So if I keep up the good hard work i will have some time to devote to this blog. i would like to get back to posting one or two items per week and i have many new stories to relate regarding my recent activities as well as previous stories to complete.

i thank You/you all for Your/your interest/patience and i will now get back to posting here at Female Future on a somewhat routine schedule (time and permission willing).

Of course i thank Goddess for the privilege of allowing me to share my thoughts and Our/our experiences here with You/you all (once again).

Kate Upton's Super Super Bowl Ad

What some would regard as yet another sexist Super Bowl advert i would like to consider from another perspective. Personally i think this ad is rather funny. Funny because it's true. It is, in fact, a blatant demonstration of the Power of Feminine Beauty in its most elemental form. Here We/we have the Stunningly beautiful Kate Upton supposedly washing a car. Well, in fact, She is having a group of enraptured males wash the car for Her. The simple undeniable fact of Her Beauty having the power to completely consume the focus of males is obvious. Her power is not just seen in the advert itself but stop and imagine the scene that played out in millions of living rooms across America (and indeed the world) when this ad appeared on television. Image the attention of tens of millions of male football fans suddenly drawn to Kate's voluptuous , teasing figure in high definition. i can easily imagine the scene as groups of rowdy, boisterous males suddenly fall silent, utterly focused on their TVs, in awe of one of Mother Natures most exquisite creations.  Think also of Sports Illustrated in which whose swimsuit issue Kate has become a shining star in recent years.  SI's normal weekly circulation is about 3 million. The swimsuit issue sells 11 millions copies! Imagine again millions of males eagerly opening the issue and gazing spellbound at Her glorious image upon its pages.  Image how many males (millions!) whose sexual fantasies are fueled by Kate's images, imagine how much male seed has been expended in masturbatory worship of this Goddess.

If that is not raw power then it's difficult to know what is.

In the TV advert i laughed at the obviousness of the hoses spurting water but absolutely loved it when Kate approached the males and said simply "you missed a spot". In that simple statement We/we see the sly teasing of a Goddess fully aware of Her Power over males and Her enjoyment in exercising it.

A New Task

Over breakfast this morning Goddess smiled and looked at me across the table,

"ethan i have a new task to add to your list. As you know i have symphony tickets this evening with Felicity, so i won't be home for supper."

"Instead of preparing My supper i would like you to start cleaning my shoes this evening"

With that She rose from the table,

"Follow Me"

i trailed Her to the bedroom and She opened the door of Her shoe closet and displayed Her collection. i admit i didn't realize just how large a collection it had become. It never seems to stop growing.

i looked over the racks of  pumps, stiletto heels, sandals and boots carefully. i was feeling a little nervous, excited and intimidated at once.

"As you can see this is not going to be a small job. I expect you the clean each one carefully, top to bottom, in detail until it shines"

Smiling She continued

"Now i know what a thing you have for My shoes so i figured you'd enjoy this task"

"Oh and one other thing"

" I want you to strip naked for this. I want you down on your knees in the buff while you buff my shoes"

"I'm going to enjoy thinking about you while i enjoy the concert. When i get back I expect to find you here at the closet entrance, naked and on your knees. I'll be inspecting your work. Is that clear?"

"Yes Goddess of course"

"Good, all the cleaning supplies are here on the shelf. I don't expect you to be able to finish this task in just one evening but i expect you make a good start and to do it right. I will be checking your work very carefully and if it's not up to My standards you will be corrected"

"You know how much I love my shoes so I expect you to treat them with great care. I'm adding this to your weekly task list. I want my shoes and boots kept absolutely clean and polished at all times. Clear enough?"

"Yes Goddess, very clear!"

"Good boy, now give Me a kiss before I head to work"

She kissed me with intent and gave me a sly smile.

"Enjoy" was all She said before heading out the door.

Once She departed i went back to the shoe closet for a better look. i was amazed just how large Her collection had become. This was going to be a long process, long and humiliating. Which i guessed was the idea.

Goddess normally enjoys humiliating me on a regular basis and i was quite surprised She had not taken every opportunity to rub it in since i adopted my new role. Apart from the scattered 'housewife' reference She has been quite gentle on my ego, mostly being really loving and supportive. She has even dropped the 'housewife' expression and started calling my by a more appropriate title of 'houseboy' when She teases me.

Now that i seem to have taken to my new role with enthusiasm maybe She feels its time to assert Her Dominance more forcefully.

Which is OK by me. i love it when She cracks the whip. Her little humiliations only fuel my submissiveness, my desire to serve Her and my love for Her.

to be continued......

The Rise of Femen

It's no secret that in the world today despite the rapid and unmistakable advancements (including outright victories) made by Women in many western countries there are still many places ruled by misogynistic patriarchies where Women are suppressed politically, socially and sexually. That is why it is so amazing to see many young brave Women stand up and assert Their rights. The founders/members and participants of Femen are such Women. Brave and seemingly fearless They have at great personal risk stood up for Women in these societies. What has no doubt helped them in their cause is Their decision to protest topless or nude. This is a very cleaver strategy in which they have chosen to take advantage of the very thing that gives Women so much power over men and strikes fear into chauvinistic males everywhere. Female sexuality. Notice the massive overreaction of the authorities. Doesn't that suggest they are afraid of these Women. And so they should be. Confident, passionate, intelligent and sexual Women are the patriarchy's worst nightmare (or could it be their secret fantasy).

Anyway Bravo Ladies! 

-ej

From the Guardian;

"Femen's topless warriors start boot camp for global feminism
Ukrainian activists set up an international training centre in Paris to teach women the art of naked protest

In a chaotic and crumbling former public washhouse in a rundown district of northern Paris, Inna Shevchenko was explaining how a large leather punchbag hanging from the rafters might be used by the foot soldiers of a new generation of feminists.
As she prepared to welcome recruits to the Ukrainian-based feminist group Femen's first "international training camp", it was clear that the instruction would not be all ideological. The talk was of "war", "soldiers", "terrorism" and "enemies". Was it not curious, one French journalist asked, that Inna and her warriors had adopted the language of combat, traditionally a male domain, to describe their mission?
Was it not also inconsistent, another asked, that the ? In a week that had seen the banning of
photographs of a topless Duchess of Cambridge, it was certainly topical.
"Ah, but we have a different idea; we are talking about peaceful war, peaceful terrorism," Inna said. "We are taking off our clothes so people can see that we have no weapons except our bodies. It's a powerful way to fight in a man's world. We live with men's domination and this is the only way to provoke them, the only way to get attention.
"We don't hide our bodies, we don't hide our faces, we confront our enemies face to face. We look them in the eyes and we have to be well prepared physically for that."
There was, she explained patiently, no contradiction in going topless or naked to against what they view as the three main evils of a global "patriarchal society": sexual exploitation, dictatorship and religion. Protesting naked, as Femen's slogans insist, is liberté, a reappropriation of their own bodies as opposed to pornography or snatched photographs which are exploitation.
On a less intellectual level, taking their clothes off ensures a lot of publicity.
"There is an ideology behind protesting topless, but we quickly realised that if we took our tops off and screamed loudly it was a good way to get attention," Alexandra Shevchenko, one of Femen's founders, said. "It works. Of course, people talk about our nakedness, but they are also listening to our message."
She added: "Believe me, it is really difficult for me to take my clothes off and stand in a public place. But this is the fight, and the fight is never easy."
The Femen movement was created in    in 2008 to protest against sexism, prostitution and the exploitation of women in the former Soviet state. Inna, 22, second daughter of an army officer, and a journalism graduate, took off her top and joined the protests, a decision that would cost her a well-paid job as a press officer at Kiev town hall. In August, she fled Ukraine after a well-publicised stunt in which she wielded a chainsaw semi-naked to chop down a large wooden Orthodox cross in support of the jailed Russian feminists    : "Afterwards I was followed for three days by the secret services. In fact they're not very secret, they like you to know they are following you to make you scared. One morning they tried to break into my apartment. I thought it was a sign I was in danger. I wasn't scared about being in prison. I have already been in prison many times, but there are worse things."
An open invitation from a group of feminists in France brought her to Paris, where Femen has set up camp in the Lavoir Moderne Parisien, in Paris's poor and ethnically mixed Goutte d'Or district. In his 1877 novel L'Assommoir, Emile Zola described the Lavoir Moderne, then a state-of-the-art public washroom, as an "immense hangar, with its flat ceiling, and open beams sitting on steel pillars closed off with large clear windows".
After closing in 1953, it began a second life as a community theatre, now under threat and in financial difficulty after a property developer acquired the building with a view to turning it into flats.
On the first floor, high above where the old zinc washing vats would have steamed, a vast airy room is plastered with Femen campaign slogans: "Nudity is freedom", "Let's get naked", "I am a woman, not an object".
If the male journalists and photographers who have beaten a path here since Femen announced its training camp are disappointed to find the girls fully dressed in the international uniform of jeans and T-shirts, they have the good grace not to show it.
Outside, on the streets of Goutte d'Or, the three tall, beautiful women cut an incongruous path through the veiled and headscarf-wearing women of the large local Muslim community, weaving their pushchairs through the roadworks. Femen's "Better naked than the burqa" campaign has made few inroads here.
"The decision to bring the fight to France and open a training centre was a French initiative, an invitation from French feminists who sent us a message saying they needed us," said Inna.
"Before then we thought of France as a first world and already feminist country that didn't really need us. Since arriving, I have met many Frenchwomen and they say they need to start the fight again. We are bringing a new face, new blood, a new fight to
."
She added: "Classical feminism is like an old sick lady that doesn't work any more. It's stuck in the world of conferences and books. We have the same ideas as the classical feminists, what is different is the form of fight. We fight in a way that will attract young women to the ideology again.
"Early feminists fought for the right for women to wear trousers and jeans and won. Now we can wear trousers and jeans, but when a woman speaks in parliament, do the men listen? It's still a world dominated by men, where women are slaves and where women still do not earn the same or have the same opportunities. So we have to start again. It's the clothing fight all over again."
To that end, Inna is staying in Paris to give her new feminist recruits their "physical and ideological training", while Femen militants Alexandra, 24, and Oxana Shachko, 25, are returning to Kiev, where a similar camp will be established. A third is planned for Brazil, where Femen has a large following, in the runup to the 2016 Olympic Games.
"Soldiers will be born here, but they will not be French soldiers. They will be feminist soldiers, international soldiers," said Inna. "Women in every country need Femen."
Back to the big leather punchbag hanging from the rafters, and Inna admits that the training sessions will not be entirely pacifist. "Feminism should be provocative," she adds. "There's no other way for women to get attention. It's the only action left to us. So the training will be moral but also physical. You have to be in good shape, because at protests you may need to run away or attack the police or jump on a building or a car."

The French riot police in their "robocop" outfits have been warned."