Beyond its diversity and conflicts of definition, feminism constitutes a political project of transformation (at least partial) of social structures, individual behavior and categories of thought. But what were its real effects? ? The work edited by Delphine Gardey intends to answer this question, mainly for the French case since the 1960s.
Does feminism change our lives ? brings together the contributions of teacher-researchers in social sciences from the Gender Studies team at the University of Geneva and presents in a synthetic manner, around thematic chapters, the changes attributable to feminism, or feminisms, understood here as collective movements and as critical thoughts. Indeed, despite the singularity of the title, feminisms are understood in their historical, ideological and political plurality and in their practical and theoretical expressions. In this sense, the different contributions highlight both the concrete effects of feminist mobilizations on social practices and the changes that feminist theories produce on the categories of perception and analysis of the social world.
New rights
The authors first recall that feminist mobilizations have enabled the acquisition of new rights for women (in the field of work, in political matters or in the control of their fertility) and have produced a transformation of the social relations of gender by reducing the unequal distribution of power and resources between men and women. Feminist demands have thus favored a greater presence of women in prestigious professions or political responsibilities, despite the maintenance of inequalities in the labor market or in political life, and have induced changes in behavior. More broadly, feminist movements have contributed to the dissemination of values, norms and ideas throughout society that “ become new cultural repertoires on which the springs of individual action are based » (p. 90). Laurence Bachmann shows, for example, that the relationship that middle-class women have with money reflects the appropriation and internalization by these women of the principles of equality and autonomy supported by feminism. Delphine Gardey can thus conclude by affirming that feminisms have allowed women to “ become a subject of law and a political subject, become an actress in (their) sexual life and be able to choose it, bring about new forms of subjectivity » (p. 118). For men too, feminism has had effects on their social practices and in their professional or emotional relationships, but Christian Schiess emphasizes that it is much more a question of adjustments in male behavior in the face of changes in women’s aspirations than of radical transformations.
New perceptions
Alongside these changes in individual and collective behavior, categories of perception of the social world have also been readjusted under the effect of feminist movements and theories. Thus, the authors emphasize that one of the major contributions of the feminist perspective is to have highlighted inequalities that were previously underestimated or denied. This is for example the case of feminist criticism of work which has not only revealed professional inequalities between women and men, but also the social relations (notably gender) inherent to the valorization and prestige of professions. Likewise, the work undertaken by feminists has called into question the traditionally established boundary between the private and the public by bringing to the fore the political dimension of questions perceived as strictly belonging to the private sphere and naturalized. Colette Guillaumin thus underlined that the use of nature of women and men to justify inequalities constituted the ideological aspect of the material oppression of women. Through these movements, the unequal distribution of domestic work can, for example, be understood not as the result of a nature specific to men and women (which would induce differentiated behaviors) but through the prism of the power relationships at play in heterosexual couples and linked to a general structure of domination of men over women. Lorena Parini also highlights the contribution of feminists to the politicization of sexuality, by refusing to conceive of it as simply relating to the private sphere, and to the contestation of its naturalness. Thus, they impose questions of sexuality in the public space, denounce the power relations that play out there and demand the consideration of female pleasure, the freedom of homosexuality or the free use of their bodies.
Domestic work
The analysis of domestic work is another example of these changes in perception. It has contributed to reconsidering the classic definition of work which is based on the distinction between salaried work and non-work. However, feminists have emphasized since the 1960s that if women’s domestic activities are unpaid, invisible and socially devalued, they nonetheless constitute work. Taking domestic work into account then induces profound changes in the analysis of work since, as Rachel Vuagniaux points out, the number of annual hours devoted to this activity is greater than the number of hours of paid work (nearly 59 billion hours compared to 38 billion in France in 1998). In the same way, Isabelle Giraud shows that the famous slogan of the 1970s “ private is political » has redefined politics by broadening its scope of action to hitherto neglected areas. Violence against women constitutes an example: first understood as relating to individual and private relationships, it gradually appeared, under the impetus of feminist movements, as requiring political intervention.
New concepts
Finally, the scientific production resulting from feminist research has shaken dominant areas of the social sciences. Thus, the successive developments of the concept of gender renew the perspectives of classic analyzes of work or politics, but also, for example, of colonialism. In this regard, Iulia Hasdeu shows the heuristic value of gender as a category for analyzing the colonial: the over-sexualized representation of women from colonized countries is established as a distinctive feature of the Other at the same time as the civilized/savage hierarchy is assimilated to the supremacy of men over women. In other words, the categories of gender and race are co-constructed through a similar process which, as Elsa Dorlin has shown in her work on The Race Matrixpathologizes and inferiorizes women and racialized people. The concept of intersectionality, born in the wake of gender studies and which we owe to Kimberlé Crenshaw, also constitutes in this regard an important renewal of the categories of understanding social inequalities by emphasizing the intersection of different systems of domination, thus moving away from a cumulative perspective of power relations. Class, gender and race, for example, do not constitute classification systems that aggregate, but power relations that are constantly co-constructed.
The work thus convincingly demonstrates that feminisms are social movements, political theories and scientific analytical frameworks which have profoundly affected both social practices and the modalities of understanding our social world. Does feminism change our lives ? constitutes in this regard a useful contribution to strongly remind us of the need to take into account feminisms, in their diversity, for those who intend to act on society and/or offer a theoretical or empirical analysis. It also opens up avenues of analysis that the format used by the collection did not allow us to explore. In particular, it invites us to focus closely on the very processes of transformation of the social under the effect of feminism, by questioning, for example, the concrete modalities of diffusion and appropriation of “ egalitarian ethos », according to the expression of Michèle Ferrand. More generally, the causal links between feminisms and changes in social gender relations would certainly benefit from being questioned in a more systematic manner. Finally, the plurality of feminisms implying competitive, and sometimes antagonistic, conceptions of gender equality, it would be fruitful to analyze social transformations with regard to the power relations that run through feminisms.