Yvette Roudy, women are a force [*]
Interview by Delphine Gardey, Jacqueline LAUFER In “work, gender and companies” 2002/1 (n ° 7), pages 5 to 38
1 The name of Yvette Roudy is associated with the law of July 13, 1983 on professional equality between women and men. Former Minister of Women’s Rights (from 1981 to 1986), she traces her action in this area and re -sits it in the broader context of her feminist and political commitment, her fight for equality and parity. Yvette Roudy does not chew her words. She tells us here her convictions and her positions, but also her indignation and her revolts. Its testimony makes it possible to measure the importance of the path traveled and the extent of what remains to be done.
2Delphine Gardey and Jacqueline Laufer
3Jacqueline Laufer : What memory is the start of your feminist commitment attached to?
4 Yvette Roudy :No doubt my relations with my father, difficult relationships, as often, without going Freud who also said a lot of nonsense about women. My father was very authoritarian and fairly macho. He was not mean, very aware of his duties towards his family. He behaved as a good father in the patriarchal sense of the term: he was very dominating with his children. When I asked him “Why does my brother have the right to go out when he wants and not me?” He replied “because he’s a boy“. I found the explanation a little short. And yet I was not ten years old but that was not enough for me.
I was already very independent. I wanted to go out, to see the world, I had a curious spirit, I asked questions constantly, questions to which he did not answer, to which he could not answer or did not want to answer. In addition he was very absent, while watching me closely. In short, he was choking me. And as I protested, the tone rose, he raised his voice, I didn’t want to give in, I didn’t want to be impressed. I didn’t want him to think he could scare me.
I add that he was a member of the SFIO {socialist}and that the stories he made of his militant life did not give the best image of politics. Because of him, I waited until I was 34 before engaging in politics. But I have committed myself, perhaps also because of him, in feminism and in socialism. These two fights are inseparable, complementary to me. This sense of revolt against everything that seems unjust to me has always inhabited me, has played an important role in my political route.
5JL : Haven’t you changed?
6yr: So of course and I still change. I learned to control myself, to master myself. I cultivated myself. Important meetings, finally life, have taught me a lot. But the bottom of my character has not changed.
THE LAW OF THE STRONGEST
7Delphine Gardey : How did it translate into your political fight?
8YR: I think I draw from the indignation capacity of strong convictions which give me energy, tenacity otherwise no strong project can succeed. I also kept, what my friends call with indulgence, a certain freshness, which still makes me react with force to the shocks of events. An example today or rather two examples. I reacted very quickly to the way in which the Taliban treated the Afghanes and I piaffe in helplessness not to be able to help them more in a time when things are a little better for them. In another closer area I enter to see how parity is diverted to politics at the time of the next legislative elections.
9DG : To come back to your personal itinerary, how did your entry into working life go?
10YR: My father did not send me to high school. He could have ; he did not do it. He brought me into a vocational school where there too I asked too many questions that was not answered. I literally enrolled (I am not someone patient). At 17, I started working – I was doing the secretariat in a factory that used the fish. I signed up for evening lessons to prepare the “baccalauréat” and continue my studies, the same week I was starting to work. For me the first battle, the first conquest was culture, learning, learning to understand. This movement is permanent at home: I always want to learn, to understand, always want to know how things work, how you can go further to change, improve. I find that one of the most beautiful things in life is this permanent possibility that we have to move forward in knowledge of the world.
11DG : In fact, in your itinerary, it was also a possibility of opening up to culture?
12yr: In a way. It is a form of intellectual curiosity but also of a strong desire to fight so that things change. And it is no coincidence that it was Colette Audry – woman of letters and activist – with whom I made translations, with whom I started writing, who reconciled me with politics. I got involved from this spontaneous indignation before injustice. I believe that Simone de Beauvoir wrote it very well in the preface to one of my books. She had said one day “I thought about it a lot and now I know who you are. You are a wrestler, this is the dominant line there. ” I think she was right.
Recently I went to a demonstration around the “Galeries Lafayette” {famous fashion store} in order to protest with a few feminists against the exhibition of women in underwear in the window, which is allegedly going to waves household chores. A spectacle that I thought reserved for certain districts of Amsterdam and in front of which poor types came to tape. And I said to myself, parading and getting bogged down with the supporters of this miserable staging “But what do I do here?” Isn’t that the place of new generations?” And yet I stayed until the end.
In the demonstrations for the Afghanes we are more numerous. For the “Galeries Lafayette” {famous fashion store}, we were too few. But I was there too. In the same way since I discovered recently, during a parliamentary mission in Africa, the excruciating conditions of these kids that we sell, real slaves, taken in the filter networks with the father’s consent, (the mother does not count) under the eyes of the authorities of the country with which we have friendly relations, I say to myself: “What to do to change these practices, these traffic? It is so well inscribed in their history, in a system, that you have the feeling that you can’t change anything. ” I just released a report on the subject. This is a small contribution that will be added to the efforts of international organizations. I propose to remove aid from countries covering these trafficking. These horrors are a system. Of a balance of power. Always the same: the exploitation of the weakest by the strongest. Children, women, poor countries … the poor … This same law of the strongest on the weakest as in the 17th century – already – foal of the bar denounced.
All societies organize remarkably for women and men the theory of the two spheres: that of the “public” for them, that of the “private” for us. We are here. They’re over there. This is what the deputies explained to us between the two wars when they seriously discussed in the Assembly of the opportunity to give women the right to vote. “What do you need to enter politics?” They said, “This is the business of men. You are reign over our senses, what more do you want? ” They were quite sincere by saying that. But at the same time, they died of fear of seeing women arrive in the hemicycle with the pretension of mingling with the legislation. Just like today. Parity terrifies them and yet it protects them. I often tell them: “Parity protects you from this appalling vision of a hemicycle made up of 90% women and 10% of men. A situation we, however, we must, however, accommodate ourselves ”.
FEMINISM WAS “the” DEVIL
13J.L. : Have things really moved in politics and in particular to the Socialist Party?
14 YR: Ah yes, yes, surely. When I entered the PS in 1971, I didn’t know what was waiting for me. It was still the old SFIO, I arrived from the Convention of Republican Institutions. The convention was a very nice little club, very quiet that Mitterrand had created a little in his image. We were there, it was open, intelligent, we said what we wanted, we discussed a lot. We were not very numerous. But when I arrived in this SFIO of 1971, a rigid, narrow structure, with strict, almost military rules, a steep speech, language of wood, archaic in a word, I told myself that it was going to have to change everything. There were a few women, little but one in particular, a colorful character, a senator, the only senator, more young (at least in my eyes). Her name was Irma R., shaped by this party, for whom feminism was the devil. And she said to me with her inimitable Corsican accent “You feel sulfur”. Me, it made me laugh. I did not understand. But in fact it was terrible what she was telling me there. It was the perfect product of this well -locked male club that was the political world.
She was their good conscience. A very good auxiliary who didn’t bother anything … And she said “But why don’t women come to this party? Nothing prevents them from coming ”… nothing, except the customs, the rules, this culture that men reveal when they are between them, made of violence and the taste of domination, the culture of the warrior whose least we May it be that it is not our cup of tea. This is what I found when I arrived in 1971. A male world where women were invisible, docile: office, section, elections. But I arrived with the Mitterrand team, with Marie-Thérèse Eyquem, and Colette Audry. We were a few grouped together in a club “the female democratic movement”. We were a pressure group organized well in the style of clubs as encouraged them Mitterrand. Marie-Thérèse Eyquem was our leader. She was a woman of strong personality and strong corpulence, great will, an speaker, a wrestler. She had her outspokenness of authority. We listened to him. It was respected. Very close to Mitterrand. Me, I was in her wake but I was also alongside Colette Audry, a fine intellectual, little made for the fight but who did not have his same for the analysis. A very great writer who has not yet been recognized … For the moment …
15DG : You have the impression that what was possible in the entourage of Mitterrand was not in the SFIO; And what about the PS?
16YR: This is what I tried to tell you. The rules, the customs, the culture was not the same. By entering the new PS, the Convention of Republican Institutions with its club practices has brought a new breath. A breath of freedom. And we with “the female democratic movement”, we brought feminism into socialism – at least as long as Mitterrand lived. With Mitterrand we were able to bring in the debate on the quotas and obtained a vote. Not easy. It was on the occasion of the Suresnes Congress in 1974 I believe. The battle was tough. Men like Mitterrand but also Mauroy and Albert Gazier, and André Bouloche and Gérard Jaquet, and still others supported the idea. But there were women to oppose it. “What a horror, quotas. It’s shocking”. “Yes, but the current situation is even more shocking” we reply. I was convinced that feminism was going to be an integral part of socialism. Like a current of strong, dynamic, modern, left -wing thought. But it is clear that Mitterrand disappeared, the old habits have taken over. The transplant did not take. There was rejection.
17JL : And the PS women’s current?
18YR: The current led by Françoise Gaspard. The current “G”. I’m going to tell you how I experienced things. It was in the 1970s. Françoise Gaspard our first enarque wife, a feminist, arrived at the PS; Very well received by everyone, she decides to create a special women’s current. It was logical: the PS is a party made up of currents: A, B, C, etc. Intellectually, it was flawless. Except that it is necessary to be a minimum of people to be recognized, and even most feminist women did not want to enter into a particular current, preferred to mix with broader debates. A socialist feminist is constantly rolled out in his choices.
It’s not easy to fight on two slots at a time. Basically, I knew she wouldn’t find enough women to make a current. We were too minority. I offered him another strategy: entering the heart of power. Obtain the creation of a women’s rights secretariat in order to sit on every week where decisions are made: at the National Secretariat. We have long been divided on this. Indeed, his current did not make a recipe. But she tried. In this regard, I remember an anecdote. Anne Le Gall that you no doubt know, a feminist at heart, intelligent, funny, had joined the current of Françoise Gaspard and at the time of the presidential elections of 1974, she decided to present her candidacy for the candidacy as the party’s rules allowed him there. A way to make your ideas hear. Of course Mitterrand was also a candidate and the challenge was funny. I had a lot of fun. But one who did not laugh was Paul Quilès, national secretary responsible for preparing these elections. We saw him climb to the tribune, furious, to oppose Anne’s candidacy. But Mitterrand got up and in a soft voice said to him: “I’m going to meet Anne Le Gall”. He received it with infinite respect. They spoke. He listened to what she had to say. He took it into account. He was an intelligent type, and a very high man. All ideas interested him. He knew how to listen, to integrate what people had to say. An attitude that does not exist in the big traditional parties where we are used to eliminating those who disturb unremary, to cut all the heads that exceed according to the artichoke strategy.
THE BATTLE FOR PARITY
19DG: And for parity? What was the role of the PS and that of public opinion?
20YR: The battle for parity is much later. In 1992, the book by Françoise Gaspard, Claude Servan Schreiber, Anne Le Gall, Au Pouvoir, Citoyennes! Freedom, Equality, Parity at the Threshold. Also in 1992, a solemn declaration was adopted in Athens on the occasion of the first European “Women in Power” summit. The declaration specifies in particular “because women represent more than half of the population, democracy imposes parity in the representation and administration of nations”. The term quickly caught on among feminists in Europe and like many, I got involved as soon as the Charter came out.
With some friends I created “The Assembly of Women”, wrote a book “But what are they afraid of? released by Albin Michel in 1995, participated in multiple events. I signed the manifesto of 577 for parity published in Le Monde on November 10, 1993, but the political class, the parties remained impenetrable, while everything depended on them.
It was then that I had the idea in 1996 of bringing together around a table a dozen women, former ministers from the right and the left, and to propose to them a common action in favor of parity. Simone Veil accepted immediately, then Edith Cresson, Michèle Barzac, Catherine Tasca, Monique Pelletier, Véronique Neiertz, Catherine Lalumière, Frédérique Bredin, Hélène Gisserot joined us. The group got along well and we released the Manifesto of the Ten which the Express covered extensively thanks to the talented help of Elizabeth Schemla. A survey organized by them revealed that more than 70% of French people agreed with us. When questioned, Juppé and Jospin declared themselves in favor of most of our proposals. In particular, the non-accumulation of mandates, the introduction of proportional representation, the use of quotas if necessary, the financing of parties according to the respect of parity, the change of the Constitution if necessary, a law and “why not a referendum” we said. It was a huge success and I believe the trigger that unfroze the Parties. But I almost received a reprimand from the Socialist Party.
21JL: Why?
22YR: I had organized a joint action with right-wing women. A violation of the rules. Moving on… The impact of this Manifesto has been considerable. From the 1997 elections, Jospin who is not stupid and who was then first secretary of the party, decided to present 30% of legislative candidates. It was a revolution. Furious, several “comrades” came to tell me “we will not find candidates and they will make us lose”. We found more than enough and they won. Public opinion was ahead of the parties. So we left 30% and we arrived 18% at the Socialist Group of the National Assembly. Many constituencies were of very poor quality. The number had still tripled and it shows. That said, we did not reach 12% in the Assembly, all groups combined.
We are far from the 30%, called “critical mass” from which we begin to weigh wherever we are.
23DG: What conclusions do you draw now from this establishment of parity?
24YR: A generally positive assessment to use a historical expression even if it is not quite what I had expected. The long march is far from over. The law, you may not know it, only concerns proportional elections, that is to say European, regional and municipal elections. This gave the municipal more than 47% of women municipal councillors. Nothing is changed for the mayors, nothing is said about the Communities of Communes. Nothing is said for the elections of the general councillors. As for the senatorials, the text was so vague that it has already been diverted. And for the legislative elections, it is simply said that the parties which will not present 50% of women will see their subsidies reduced proportionally. However, the parties have already done their accounts, they will prefer to pay and as nothing is said about the quality of the constituencies, it will be interesting to closely follow the results of the next legislative elections. Some will be disappointed.
But the symbolic force of parity is so great and the announcement effect of the passing of a law so strong that public opinion is convinced that the question is settled. This is not entirely true.
25DG: What exactly does the law provide?
26On June 28, 1999, Parliament, meeting in Congress, amended Article 3 of our Constitution by adding a paragraph worded as follows: “the law promotes equal access of women and men to electoral mandates and elective functions”. The legislator was entrusted with the mission of promoting this equal access, by law. In addition, Article 4 of the Constitution has been supplemented in order to specify that political parties and groups “contribute to the implementation” of this principle of equal access “under the conditions determined by law”.
The law of June 6, 2000 provides for equality of candidacy in proportional elections. For municipal and regional elections, parity applies in groups of 6 candidates, thanks to an amendment by feminist deputies (the government text – Chevènement text – did not specify the order on the list and without our amendment, we would have found women at the end of the list). The alternating parity concerns the European elections, and the regional ones.
With regard to the senatoriales, the departments concerned by the proportional vote are those electing 3 senators or more, and not 5 as was the case. In many departments the law could have been circumvented by a trick that the legislator had not foreseen – or perhaps that some smarter than others had foreseen. Intermunicipal and cantonal structures escape the law and nothing is provided for mayors and deputies. In addition, the law provides for reducing the amount of public aid allocated to parties when the difference between the number of candidates of each sex of this party exceeds 2% of the total number of candidates. The law of June 6, 2000 provides for the equality of candidacy in proportional elections. For municipal and regional elections, parity applies in groups of 6 candidates, thanks to an amendment by feminist deputies (the government text – Chevènement text – did not specify the order on the list and without our amendment, we would have found women at the end of the list). The alternating parity concerns the European elections, and the regional ones.
27JL: Concretely, how does it work?
28YR: Example: for the RPR: If it remained at 7.7% of women candidates, the reduction would be 42.3% of financial aid, i.e. 18.4 million francs. For the UDF: for 8.9% of women the reduction would be 37.9%, or 15.6 million francs. The PCF: which has 26.8% of women, decrease of 23.3%, or 6.1 million francs. The PS: 27.8% of women candidates, a decrease of 23.4% because the PS receives state aid jointly with the Left Radicals who only presented 14% of women, or 16.2 million. The Ecologists: 27.7% of candidates, decrease of 22.3% or 2.3 million.
This system increased female municipal councilors from 25% to 47.5%. The system does not apply to mayors. Women mayors fell from 4.95% to 6.6%. France ranks last among European countries with Italy and Greece. It is the only country that has a law. The countries that come first with more than 30% (“magic” number) are the Nordic countries: Sweden (42.7%), Denmark (37.4%), Finland (36.5%), Norway (36, 4%), the Netherlands (36.0%), Germany (30.9%). In second place (from 20 to 30) we find Spain (28.3%), Austria (26.8%), Belgium (23.3%). In the third group we find Portugal (18.7%), the United Kingdom (17.9%), Luxembourg (16.7%). We are in the fourth group: France (10.9%), Ireland (12%), Italy (9.8%) and Greece (8.7%) come last.
29DG: Is France the only country to have adopted a law on parity?
30YR: Yes. We can say that it is to our credit. But that also means that the parties have been unable to meet the demands of the French. Our law is certainly limited, but it changes things for municipalities where a breeding ground can be created. The parties agreed to vote for it, because all the political parties recognized that our country was definitely putting on too bad a face around the European table. They also understood that this was part of the necessary modernization of our political life. And finally they were not unaware that the French are largely in favor of parity. However, the political class seriously needs to get closer to public opinion, which generally judges it with great severity. The increasing rate of abstentions is there to prove it.
THE STRONG RESISTANCE OF THE DEPUTIES
31DG: Who is holding back, who is blocking this transformation?
32YR: We have to reckon with the fierce resistance of most deputies, taken separately, who feel threatened in what they consider their property. And you cannot imagine the imaginative capacity of an elected official “who has not been unworthy” as he claims and who considers himself stripped of a seat of which he believes himself to be the owner.
One example, just one. In the 20th arrondissement, there is a first choice constituency. The best in all of Paris. It is acquired on the left regardless of the candidate. The mayor, senator moreover, did not accept that she be classified by the “reserved woman” party in 1997. Forced to comply, he imposed the wife of his chief of staff who did not ask for anything. The unfortunate, barely arrived at the National Assembly begins a depression, and ends up resigning. And there we reach the sublime. The senator mayor makes a “heroic” offer: he resigns from his seat as a senator to “reconquer” “his” seat as a deputy. It’s a little complicated. But this is a textbook case. The sequel deserves attention. Her proposal is accepted by the national office of the party where 30% of women sit on behalf of the quota… who did not protest.
And no one notices that the one who “goes up” to the Senate – placed behind the mayor on the list of senatorials – is the interior minister’s own chief of staff… Old friends had set up this superb scam, but it took, you can imagine, a lot of complicity, work, concentration and follow-up in the determination to succeed. And I would add that for the 2002 elections this constituency, although still classified as “woman” on paper, remained in the hands of the same man. As you can see, they have some defence, some solidarity too and the sordid montages don’t scare them.
33JL: What is the future of parity?
34YR: The future of parity rests with these women who have just been elected thanks to parity. The 47% of municipal councillors, the few deputies. Most of them are not feminists because feminists have been pushed aside. Do not forget that it is the men who consider themselves sacrificed to parity, who have chosen them, for the majority of them. But they are intelligent, strong, rather young, courageous women, who are formed on the job politically, and who work hard because they have understood that they have no room for error. They gain confidence and through the blows that are not spared them, perhaps they will understand one day that they could from time to time militate for their own cause. The future will tell. One thing is certain, they demonstrate that voters were right to trust them. We can no longer say that they make us lose, that they are zero, that they will lead us to disaster. They are very good and that is what scares those who are not very sure of themselves.
35JL: In the end, what is the impact of parity on the functioning of political parties and that of the PS in particular?
36YR: On the very functioning of the parties, I don’t see any big change yet. The law does not apply to parties, except to sanction them, but this affects them little. But there is a “parity effect”. The parties make an effort to feminize so as not to appear too unpopular. Only the Socialist Party has set a quota. It’s about 40%. The presence of women can modify mores, habits and language. They are no longer “among themselves”. Some jokes no longer make people laugh. Women do not have the same culture. They do not like to waste their time, are less talkative, do not support endless meetings. But I observe that women who arrive in a position of power have a functioning very similar to that of men. In general, there is no solidarity between them. Most of them want to blend into the group, without disturbing. And especially without doing “feminism”.
FEMINISM AND SOCIALISM, TWO UNIVERSES
37DG: How do you see, retrospectively, your double commitment within the Socialist Party and for feminism, compared to other feminist traditions such as those that emerged in 1968?
38YR: May 1968 was over 30 years ago. What I can say is that I never felt close to autonomous feminists – those who rejected politics and parties. I thought very quickly that social change went through politics and parties. Ideas and projects can emerge from civil society, but the achievements in a democracy like ours pass through the parties.
It is democracy. There is no democracy without parties. I know that some empowered feminists deeply despise parties and some don’t vote. It is a mistake. Men, women were killed for the right to vote, for the multiparty system. Léopold Sedar Sanghor who has just left us was very proud to announce the advent of multiparty politics in his country.
It is democracy. Undoubtedly, it is necessary to work to perfect the parties like the democracy. However, I recognize that the feminist movement experienced a new boom after May 68. Many new ideas came out of May 68. They were necessarily taken up by the parties which were in poor condition and which needed a renewal. We need a dialectic between social movement and political parties. For my part in my militant life, I strive to establish bridges between the two niches.
I do this concretely within the framework of the “Women’s Assembly” and the Summer Universities that I organize. I invite historians, feminist researchers and they speak in front of activists who make up the public and also discuss with them. It is a meeting place. They have a lot to learn from each other. I think it is not good to stay each in our respective spheres. Unfortunately, what greatly hinders this effort of mine to bring these two worlds together is that feminism continues to frighten the parties, that many socialist women do not want to be confused with these “witches” who smell of sulfur and that, moreover, feminists rightly consider that if going to a party is to be received like a dog at a bowling game, they have, after all, other things to do. I have known many very capable women whom I have invited to enter the PS, but they have left terrified. When you are greeted with condescension, you don’t listen to anything you say, why stay?
39JL: Does this lead some women to be discouraged from politics?
40YR: Definitely. On the feminist side and on the socialist side, there is unfortunately rejection on both sides. I am a very rare survivor. Apart from the Mitterrand parenthesis, the two worlds ignore each other and cultivate mistrust if not hostility. A feminist, intellectual or not, will be very uncomfortable in a party.
41DG: Is that what happened to Geneviève Fraisse?
42YR: You should ask her. Know how she lived these difficult months. I believe that she was not suspicious of the political world, any more than of the functioning of the institutions of the state apparatus. She did not run a full-fledged ministry. She was under guardianship, without her own means. It couldn’t work..
In a field as difficult and innovative as women’s rights, it is necessary to have received strong authority to give instructions directly to the competent services. Otherwise the resistors are too heavy. I very much regretted that she had not been able to make herself heard better.
43JL: Why?
44YR: Again, that’s up to her. Seen from afar, my feeling was that Martine Aubry, her supervisory minister, was not the right interlocutor for an intellectual like her. However, Martine Aubry had taken “the rights of women” under her authority. I never understood why, because not only is she not at all a feminist but having never had to fight to realize herself, she does not understand the fight of women at all.
So when the associations and some left-wing deputies asked for abortion to be extended from 10 to 12 weeks – each year several thousand French women went abroad for this assistance which they could not obtain at home – we were obliged to take to the streets like in the good old days of the opposition. And finally we were forced to appeal to the arbitration of the Prime Minister who had to intervene personally. The Ministry of Martine Aubry on this question was absent subscribers. We lost a lot of time.
45DG: How do you explain this attitude? Why are some intellectually strong women in important positions here in politics not interested in women’s issues? Why does a conception of the Republic consist in denying the question of women? If I was able to do it, they can do it, you have to make an effort, this is an argument that has often been referred to women.
46YR: Except that this is not a left-wing argument, except from a left-wing which, having never known anything about the difficulties of life, is incapable of imagining them. A certain bourgeois left, for whom being on the left can represent great audacity and a certain elegance. I classify on the left those who are sensitive to those who remained on the other side of the door. When in 1981 when I arrived in government I wanted to launch the first information campaign on contraception, what I then called the left in mink made me say “it’s useless, everyone knows ”. Me, I knew very well that in deep France, we were not informed and that we would not be until an official voice said on TV at prime time “information on the contraception is a right, it’s your right”.
47JL: Was that the first action you took when you arrived?
48YR: Yes, and there I experienced for the first time the power of certain conservative lobbies such as that of the Catholic Church, which vigorously opposed the campaign on contraception and the reimbursement of abortion. I encountered enormous difficulties and without the support of Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, the President of the Republic and the Socialist Party led by Lionel Jospin, I would not have succeeded.
Another example that can give an idea of the strength, the resistance of received ideas. It happened at the National Assembly in 1992 when we were cleaning up the Penal Code.
I then proposed to include “sexual harassment” in the Penal Code. The socialist rapporteur, Michel Pezet, a very talented lawyer, objected to me: “it is not possible, it does not exist”. Meaning: the term “sexual harassment” does not exist in the texts and what is not already written does not exist. I pretended not to understand well and in front of the socialist group gathered, I said to him “I will explain to you”. And I took as an example the case of a woman harassed at her place of work. The group immediately understood and approved of me. On this I receive reproaches from feminists: “You have not gone far enough. Harassment in the street must also be sanctioned”. Of course, theoretically they were right. Except that the socialist deputies were not ready to follow me that far. But I knew they would understand the challenges a woman might face in her workplace. It is part of the socialist culture to understand the abuses a worker can suffer. But in the street or in a public place I knew they were not ready to follow me. I would have found the same skepticism as when I tried to pass the anti-sexist law in 1983. They would have told me “you are exaggerating”. You see, it’s not always easy to make yourself understood either on the feminist side which often ignores the stubborn facts of politics.
PROFESSIONAL EQUALITY
49JL: Can we come back to the context of your entry into government in 1981 and the way in which the question of professional equality very quickly imposed itself on your agenda as minister?
50YR: My entry into government in May 81 happened in the best of circumstances. The left arrived after more than 18 years of opposition, to change lives. The country was ready to accept changes. We were full of ideas. We had spent years preparing projects. We had done seminars in particular with the Swedes of the time of Olaf Palme, we had confronted our ideas within the Socialist International. Mitterrand arrived with 110 proposals. We were excited. We felt ready. We had no doubts. We were finally going to move from theory to practice. We were going to “change life”, as our posters said, as, before us, Rimbaud had said. I knew that the most difficult files had to come first. It was necessary to take advantage of this grace period – very short – which follows any new election. A lesson that Blum left us. This is why I started with the campaign on contraception and the reimbursement of abortion. I knew that professional equality would present fewer difficulties.
But I still quickly put a preparation group in place. For what ? Because professional equality was one of the 110 proposals of the President, that there was a European Directive which recommended it, and that the consultations would take time. I had spent two years in the European Parliament from 78 to 81. It’s good training; you learn a lot in Strasbourg.
It was there that I encountered support for the cause of women from Simone Veil, who presided over Parliament. Together we succeeded in creating a women’s rights commission which still exists and of which I was the first president. I traveled a lot through Europe and I was able to compare the stories and statuses of women. Previously I had read a lot about the history of American women, translated Betty Friedan and discovered the interest of the positive actions that President Carter supported and that the European Commission recommended. I had a skill and I had the will. I think that’s why the President and the Prime Minister chose me. They knew that I would not be afraid of difficulties and that I was determined to change the lives of women. So the basic text of my law on professional equality is a European directive that I have enriched with my experience, helped in this by François Brun and Christiane Gilles, whom I had asked to join my firm as a technical adviser. . Christiane Gilles had been responsible for women at the CGT. Good training, good experience in the field, a courageous woman with strong convictions.
.…. to be continued
Women united to better our world 