La Barbe

La Barbe
La Barbe, national day, Paris, place de la Nation, July 2013
Abbreviation La Barbe
Formation 2008 (2008)
Type NGO
Purpose Women rights
Headquarters Paris, France
Location
Official language
French

La Barbe is a feminist action group founded in 2008 in France. It aims at denouncing the absence or under-representation of women in political, cultural, economical and media-tic influential and powerful instances.

The origin of the movement is to be found in the feminist movement of the '60s and '70s as well as in a new creative way of implementing feminist activism.The movement tends to practice the activism based on irony and surprise demonstrations. The members disrupt assemblies mainly composed of men with unplanned apparition, wearing false beards and congratulating them for their resistance to feminisation.The choice of these assemblies is supposed to remind women that they should be able to create, manage and represent, by obtaining access to all positions and responsibilities in all domains of activities.

Emerging context

Action of the feminist group La Barbe in Paris

The group started to emerge during the 2007 French presidential elections. Some advocates of Ségolène Royal were shocked by sexist allusions directed towards her.[1] The group gathers around Marie de Cenival, a former Act Up-Paris activist, with women who for the most part were never involved in an association or a feminist movement. In October 2008, "twenty active members, thirty sympathizers" according to Liberation, were members of the group.[2] In March 2010 fifty members were enlisted. The name of the group was a reference to the beard, as symbol of the masculinity, and to the familiar French interjection « La barbe ! » meaning "Enough!".

Their first public demonstration took place on February 28, 2008, during a signing session of the Éric Zemmour at Drugstore Publicis in Paris.[3] According to the Le Nouvel Observateur, La Barbe is legally founded as non-profit association on March 8, 2008 for the international women's day.[4] The group demonstrates in Paris with Act Up-Paris and the Panthères roses, sticking a beard to one of the statues on the Place de la République.[5]

Feminist renewal context

Barbe d'or diploma - La Barbe Toulouse

The group appears during the years 2000, marked by a new generation of feminists with the creation of the associations Ni putes ni soumises in 2003 and Osez le féminisme in 2009 or Les TumulTueuses in 2010.[6]

In the media, the creation of the magazine Causette in 2009 is also a testimony of the renewal of feminism in France. For the writer Joy Sorman, “these collectives are living proof of the renewal of political activism among the younger generations".[7] With its sense of derision, La Barbe participated in a more general movement of "activist irony"[8] next to other collectives such as L'appel et la pioche, Génération précaire, Jeudi noir, Sauvons les riches et les Clowns à responsabilités sociales.

On the international level, La Barbe develops next to the emerging movement of the Slutwalk since 2011, in which women demonstrated their right to dress as they wish.

References

  1. ↑ "A chacune son féminisme". Libération.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  2. ↑ "Le gang des postiches". Libération.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  3. ↑ Harrietamy (2008-02-28), la barbe eric zemmour, retrieved 2018-09-02
  4. ↑ ""La barbe" contre "la domination masculine"". L'Obs (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  5. ↑ COM, PEETERS. "Tasse de Thé, Culture Lesbienne". old.tassedethe.com. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  6. ↑ "Journée de la femme: la relève veut donner un nouveau souffle au féminisme". ladepeche.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  7. ↑ "L'émancipation des femmes passera par celle des hommes". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  8. ↑ "Les partisans du rire militant". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-02.
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