For March 8, Madmoizelle hands over her microphone to those who take action on a daily basis

It’s the same every year: March 8, which marks International Women’s Rights Day, becomes a media, marketing and political panacea in the service of purplewashing, silencing real debates while silencing opportunities of those who work 365 days a year for women’s rights. This year Madmoizelle has decided to give them the floor.

We all know that March 8 has become a perfect day mainstream and marketing, recovered by brands to sell their products at bargain prices for “Women’s Day”.

March 8: when the feminist discourse becomes inaudible

In the midst of discourses that are all purplewashing, feminist struggles become inaudible. This international day for women’s rights, whose initial objective was to take stock every year of the situation of women everywhere in the world, and to highlight the path still to be traveled, has been emptied of meaning, and for a certain conservative fringe, it’s also an opportunity to deflect feminist struggles by silencing them (so offer your wife or sister a rose to make her forget the inequalities and ingrained stereotypes she has to contend with).

International Women’s Day: giving a voice to those who act every day

So obviously, to miss it’s a women’s and feminist media, and we couldn’t miss it even under the pretext that this day is an empty shell. This year we wanted to extend our microphone to those who act throughout the year to defend women’s rights, be they associations or collectives from various sectors. Because they are the most suitable to bear witness to the daily reality of all women.

3 interviews with associations working for women’s rights:

• For example, we spoke to Pelphine, a fat activist also behind the @corpscools Instagram account and one of the founders of the Fat Friendly association, who has created a collaborative site that allows you to reference fat places or bodies, including those of women, they have the space they deserve it. An interview that points the finger at particularly compelling realities, but which many ignore (whether knowingly or not). Pelphine returns, by the way, to the concept of mental load of fat people, the need to build such a tool and the activist positioning of the association. A necessary word and tool.
• If the inclusiveness of women and minorities is played out in the public space, it also plays out on the cultural side, in which our imagination bathes on a daily basis. For the occasion we went to meet the collective 50/50an association created in the wake of media coverage of the #MeToo movement in early 2018 and working to promote equality and diversity in film and audiovisual. Because we know too well how much a lot is at stake on the side of representations, and as the famous male gauze it can be insidious show, in front of the camera, novels fantasized by the male eyeor many worlds depopulated by diversity or imbued with stigmatizing violence for women and minorities. In this fascinating interview, three activists from the collective told us about the progress, the stagnations, their goals and details for to miss five action modes to move the lines of one of the most influential industries in France.
• And then there is the issue of consent, which occupies an important place in feminist struggles and public debate, as its concept is regularly debated. However, a “no” is a “no”. And that’s what every feminist activist strives to say. But this reality doesn’t seem clear to everyone, as an Ipsos survey reveals: in 2022, 16% of men believed that a woman saying “no” to sex actually meant “yes”, and 23% of 18-24 year olds thought women enjoyed being forced during sex… This speaks for itself. However, it is even more necessary today to raise awareness and explain what consensus is and the need to respect it. For this, several associations have published an incisive book entitled How to decode womencontaining 2000 pages of one sentence: ” If it’s not yes, it’s no “. to miss went to meet Safiatou Mendy, co-coordinator and trainer of Consentis, and Vassilia Mattei, project manager of HandsAway, who were part of this project. They tell us.

All these women, these associations and collectives are among those who work every day despite an increasingly restrictive global context for activists: all over the world, a knockback, or big setback seems to be increasingly present with regards to women’s rights. It is therefore all the more urgent to give them a voice, and that is all to miss try to do it daily, throughout the year.