Women’s rights: what is the “backlash”?

It’s a word that comes up regularly in the mouths of feminist journalists and activists, a ” knockback ” would be in the process of settling for a few years in France and in the world. How do we spot it? Just turn on the television, read the news or scroll through social networks.

All over the world, women’s rights are facing severe setbacks

Women’s rights have been suffering setbacks around the world for several years: August 2021, the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan, subjugating millions of people trying to flee overnight, and especially women, who, for those who stay, they see their rights fly away in a short time, like that of the studio for example, when they are once again obliged to wear the full veil in public. June 2022, thunder in the United States, with the repeal, by the Supreme Court, of the sentence Roe vs. Wade, who sounds the return of the prohibition and criminalization of abortion, making tens of millions of women across the country precarious in access to abortion. A new drama for women’s health and rights which is causing much debate, even in France, where the question of the constitutionalisation of abortion is still being examined by Parliament. Also in the summer of 2022, the verdict of the Depp-Heard trial sent a particularly negative message to all victims of domestic violence around the world, and more generally to women, and brought to light the well-honed mechanisms of male chauvinists who work on social networks to influence the debate and spread hateful and anti-feminist speech.

The examples are numerous, and could be summarized in the well-known quote by Simone de Beauvoir:

“Never forget that a political, economic or religious crisis is enough to question women’s rights. These rights are never acquired. You will have to remain vigilant throughout your life. »

The pattern that has emerged in recent years takes the form of a silent threat, hovering in the distance, that of a ” knockback“.

What does kickback mean?

In its literal translation, the word knockback means “return”. In French it can also be translated as “return of the stick”. This is a concept theorized by journalist and feminist activist Susan Faludi in her book ” Knockback. The undeclared war against American women ” (in French ” Knockback. The cold war against women“), published in the United States in 1991 and translated into French two years later by Lise-Éliane Pomier, Évelyne Châtelain-Diharce and Thérèse Réveille. In this work of more than 500 pages, she brings to light an innovative concept which allows, in a word, to describe the situation experienced by women in the United States at the time, but whose principle seems immutable and still particularly resonates to the present: any advance for women’s or minority rights would be hopelessly followed by a ” backfire conservative, reactionary and masculinist.

Where does the concept of Backlash come from?

At the time, Susan Faludi was referring to the ” knockback experienced by American women in the 1980s. Indeed, the decade follows the 1970s and the women’s liberation movements, which allowed for great advances in terms of women’s rights. Among them, for example, they can now apply for a no-fault divorce, which is less restrictive and allows women to leave their husbands without having to prove fault on their part. If the 70s were an era of women’s emancipation, on the contrary, the 80s saw the arrival of the conservative discourse, conveyed in particular by the media, but also by advertising and culture. In question : recent achievements in women’s rights would have put an end to feminist struggles, which women no longer need. even worse, these results would eventually make women unhappy and uncomfortable in their skin. Speeches aimed particularly at discrediting feminist discourse, particularly through a critique of ” career ambitions of women who would later become men.

“The truth is that for ten years we have been witnessing a vendetta, a powerful counter-offensive to annihilate women’s rights”, to make us believe that “the path that leads women to the top only precipitates them, in reality, to the bottom of the l ‘abyss”.

Susan Faludi, “The Backlash. The Undeclared War Against American Women »

In more than 500 pages, Faludi’s work, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the documentary category the year of its publication, deconstructs these received ideas in extremely rigorous work. The author lists and analyzes political speeches, press articles or advertisements highlighting their falsehoods, fabrications and stereotypes, thus underlining the economic, social and political inequalities faced by women at that time. Faludi finally demonstrates how, in a context of progressivism, a large number of actors are effectively waging a “war” against women, eager to go back, when it is not simply a matter of reversing the advances they have benefited from.

With the publication of this book and the popularization of the term ” knockback“, Susan Faludi became one of the main figures of feminism in the 1990s, especially together with Gloria Steinem, who published in 1992 “Inner revolution, strengthen self-esteem”, recently reprinted in a new French translation by Harper Collins.

The book has become a staple of feminist literature, and the concept of ” knockback it has since been widely disseminated, warning of a reality: no, social progress of any kind is not linearfar from it, and the rights of women and minorities can be threatened at any time.

A good way to respond to those who believe that ” progress is made over time“.