The debate on single-sex meetings revived again.
Audrey Pulvar made a part of the political class jump by trying to explain Saturday the holding of single-sex meetings organized by the UNEF.
“If a white woman, a white man, etc. come to this workshop, I would tend to say that there is no question of throwing him out.
On the other hand, we can ask him to be silent, ask him to be a silent spectator, ”defended the PS candidate for regional in Ile-de-France, during an interview with BFMTV.
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A sentence that sparked a round of indignant comments from some elected PS, through the presidential majority to the far right and the Republicans.
The object of debate and political divisions for several weeks, single-sex meetings, considered by their defenders as a militant tool, are however nothing new, historians point out.
Explanations.
What do these meetings look like?
In most cases, these are workshops or discussion groups, in which only representatives of a minority speak.
Groups of women can for example meet among themselves, without the presence of any man to share their life experience linked to the patriarchy.
Likewise, some people who are victims of racism may want to organize workshops only among themselves, in order to approach their issues more freely, they believe.
This was notably the case in 2017 during the Afro-feminist festival Nyansapo in Paris.
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“When you're a woman, you suffer from discrimination.
So we organize meetings to allow women to express the discrimination they may be subjected to ”, had justified, on March 17, the president of the Unef Mélanie Luce at the microphone of Europe 1. Similarly, other meetings are organized within the union "to allow people affected by racism to be able to express what they are undergoing", its representative added.
Where do they come from?
In France, single sex has become known above all through the Women's Liberation Movement.
Created in the wake of May-68 where the voice of men was particularly present, the feminist organization wanted from its birth to reserve some of its discussion groups only for women.
The MLF was thus inspired by exclusively female trade union movements, already established in the United States in the 19th century.
Several thousand women participate in the demonstration, at the call of the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) on March 8, 1980 in Paris.
JOEL ROBINE
At the time, young female workers formed a general assembly to defend their interests against the bosses, all of whom were male.
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But before that, this tradition of unmixed reunion was already found ... under the French Revolution, specifies to the Parisian, Mathilde Larrère, historian of revolutions and citizenship.
“Women under the revolution could not find their place in mixed clubs since they were prohibited from participating.
It is therefore first and foremost out of necessity that we have seen the creation of various associations composed only of women, ”recalls the historian.
What are these meetings for?
"This decision of single-sex is fraught with political significance", emphasizes to the Parisian, Françoise Picq, sociologist and former feminist activist, who attended the very first single-sex meetings of the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) at the beginning of the 1970s. “We were convinced that it was up to women and them alone to defend their own liberation,” she says.
But beyond the political justification, the field experience still shows the usefulness of this type of meeting, according to their supporters.
Because without the gaze of a person deemed "dominant" on a group defining itself as "dominated", speech would be freer and free from self-censorship.
The discussion group would then constitute a space of safety for its participants.
An observation observed at the time by the former MLF activist: “as soon as we met between women, we saw that a word was released.
It changed the way we define ourselves and our relationship to the world.
Finally, we were discovering that the problems that we had so far considered to be individual could be considered collectively.
It was a revelation, ”recalls Françoise Picq.
Why do these meetings cause so much tension?
A break with a certain universalist ideal, reproduction of a form of exclusion, “reverse racism”: there are many detractors of this type of meeting, and, electoral period obliges, the entire political spectrum is positioned.
I believe in the indivisibility of the Republic & in the unity of the nation.
In my region, no inhabitant should be discriminated against for the color of their skin.
There is no such thing as "acceptable" racism!
I will always be a bulwark against those who try to fracture our country.
- Valérie Pécresse (@vpecresse) March 27, 2021
Criticism finds a lot of echo on the side of the hard right, which sees in it a new manifestation of "Islamo-leftism" and squarely calls, like Eric Ciotti, for the dissolution of the student organization.
But the more moderate right is not in favor either: the current president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, thus considered that there was "no acceptable racism".
Some elected members of the majority have not hesitated in their turn to condemn the practices of the student union.
“The Republic is one and indivisible.
The solution cannot go through exclusion, ”said Marlène Schiappa on Monday.
Others, like the head of the LREM list in the next regional elections Laurent Saint-Martin, denounced yet a "form of essentialism", which would be found in "the construction of racist thought".
It should also be noted that Audrey Pulvar, entangled in a controversy that divides even the left, has not aligned with the position of the UNEF, which does not want to see any white person at these famous meetings.
A position in half-measure, but which already contrasts with that, more firm, defended by the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, deeming these practices simply "dangerous".