For thirty years, the fight against the extreme right, from the republican front to generalized fascism, has ended in failure. Never have there been so many RN deputies in the Assembly, and we can make the same observation at European level: in Italy, a party with neo-fascist origins is in power; in Sweden, without an ex-neo-Nazi party, the right could not have won the elections (while in 2000, the country could boast of not having a single far-right MP who sat in its parliament!) . It is not impossible that the next elections in Spain will end in victory for the right allied to the extreme right. And if the French right continues lazily to avoid thinking about a program and forgets to work on a vision for the future, only Marine Le Pen’s party will remain on the track. Simply cursing the far right is unproductive, even counterproductive. As if the so-called government parties had no more arguments to oppose to the outrageous populism and the fanciful figures of the radical parties – which are, moreover, the first astonished by such a success and add to it in excess and untruths .
After reading the second annual barometer on sexism from the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE) and faced with the perfectly uniform media reactions, I fear that the fight against sexist and sexual violence will stumble over the same mistakes as the fight against the extreme right. I pass over the neo-feminist rhetoric that conflates anti-feminism with the far right, positing that anyone who considers Amber Heard to have lied and that her conviction is legitimate is a supporter of fascism – indeed any woman who does not cry with Amber Heard is the antichrist, subtlety being what activism is always sorely lacking and invariably brings about its downfall.
What is surprising in reading this barometer is the ambivalence denounced by the HCE through its president, Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette: “This barometer shows both an opinion that is generally won over to equal rights, aware of the fight against sexism and violence against women, and at the same time it reveals very entrenched sexist behaviors, especially among young men.” Are we not there, precisely, at the heart of a vicious circle? When from morning to evening and from evening to morning, in debates, at school, in campaigns to raise awareness of “VSS” (sexist and sexual violence), you hear it repeated that men are guilty because they are violent, sexist, macho , it seems to me from the level of first year of psychology that young men conform to the image that is systematically returned of themselves.
I know very well, dear reader, that this argument of “no, not all men” immediately sends me back to the limbo of primary anti-feminism, but having studied the history of women, it is precisely the argument “all women” which kept them so long in a status of social, political, economic and cultural inferiority that they ended up integrating. Young men being systematically returned to their male essence, with no hope of escaping it, end up appropriating its codes – codes which certainly do not define them. Older men have understood the trick, they show themselves “sensitized” to the fight against “VSS”, and perhaps do not think less of it, wondering all the same if the fact of commenting on the dress of a woman is gender-based violence even though women are watching and commenting more on other women’s outfits… Do a home survey around you: ask women and men to describe the outfit of one of your guests. It’s likely that women will be more precise and tougher than men.
The question of pornography occupies a large place in the barometer and reminds me of the debates on the nuisance of “role-playing games” which – it was said – pushed adolescents towards Satanism and suicide. I still remember the hordes of journalists, a few steps from Jussieu where I was then a student and an inveterate player of Dungeons & Dragons, in front of an ordinary store that sold innocent playing cards that had suddenly become the key to violence. Pornography has always existed, evidenced by the ancient frescoes, the problem is the access of too young to these images, but above all the criminalization of (healthy) sexuality which is spreading in bigoted discourse worthy of the 19th century and supposed to avoid violence they cause.