Story By: Anastasia Smirnova, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Central European News
Controversial Russian MP Vitaly Milonov – best known for his attacks on the LGBT community – has publicly slammed the women’s movement ‘Januhairy’ – launched by Exeter student Laura Jackson – branding it “stupid”.
The month-long campaign encourages women to grow their body hair and “love and accept” it while also raising money for charity.
The campaign was initially launched in January 2019 by 22-year-old University of Exeter student Laura Jackson and this year women all over the world have shelved their razors for the initiative.
However, conservative politician Milonov said: “This is stupidity. People are trying to get famous and get media attention no matter what. They are hype-addicts.”
The Russian politician said that the movement’s popularity is nothing but a “herd reflex” facilitated by online technologies that has “taken a terrible shape”.
From an environmental point of view, Milonov is convinced that the movement is pointless and that the women involved would have been better off not using their electrical devices or refraining from browsing the internet for a month.
Milonov was a local legislator before joining the lower house of the Russian parliament in 2016.
He became famous for anti-LGBT comments and once said that gay athletes should be subject to arrest at the Sochi Olympics if promoting homosexuality to minors, as well as protesting the Side by Side LGBT film festival in November 2013.
Speaking about Apple CEO Tim Cook’s homosexuality, Milonov said in 2014: “What could he bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhoea? They all have unseemly ties over there.”
Some of his proposals have reportedly included banning topless men from walking on the streets, making Halloween celebrations illegal, outlawing sex shops and free porn sites, and calling for a booze ban to prevent Russia from “drowning in tons of poisonous brew”.
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