These women who have power, by Fréderic Encel – L’Express

From September 19 to 22, the very first geopolitical conference dedicated to women will be held in France, in this case at the 9th Annual Geopolitical Meetings of Trouville-sur-Mer, founded and hosted by the author of these lines*. How can women constitute a “subject” in this young discipline? On at least two counts. First, in terms of place, role and attitude towards political, diplomatic, economic and even military powers. In contemporary times, the Israeli Golda Meir, the Indian Indira Gandhi, the British Margaret Thatcher and the German Angela Merkel have had to make considerable and sometimes existential choices at the highest level of state responsibility. Did they exercise power differently than men would have done? Nothing is less certain; the conference panelists will bring their respective approaches and nuances. Above all, is it so new? In other times and in very diverse geographical and cultural latitudes, from Nefertiti to Catherine of Russia, including Merovingian queens, the Maid of Orleans and many other strong personalities, women have played primordial roles in geopolitical terms.

Then and above all, unfortunately, talking about women and power means talking about the one and those they suffer, and as such. The current ignoble Afghan and Iranian regimes remind us of this daily, but, again, how can we explain this misogynistic scourge and its exceptional longevity? One of the answers is undoubtedly found in the representation masculine of the female body. In many states, this representation (fundamental concept created by Yves Lacoste, master of contemporary geopolitics) of the woman’s body remains archaic and leads to its repression, its confinement, its remodeling, according to canons imposed by a virility often stemming from religion. In the land of Islam especially? Today yes, but let us keep in mind what the exegetes of Saint Paul already found in the builder of the Church, in the 4th century, namely a form of virulent misogyny based on a specious interpretation of the myth of original sin, which monotheistic legend will flourish. Today, Islamists systematically refer to this to stigmatize the woman’s body, essentializing it both as a receptacle for Satan’s evil works and provider of sin, his tool of domination. Nothing exclusively monotheistic either, since in Hindu, Buddhist, animist and other states and societies, the female body is again often subject to deadly fantasies, and rapes – rarely punished – are legion.

However, beyond mystical or theological beliefs, the goal of phallocratic patriarchy, by strictly controlling the woman’s body as well as her destiny (particularly marital), is to partly control births and offspring, prohibit the sharing of power and wealth (when a daughter inherits half as much as her brother, or even nothing at all) and, where appropriate, easily (cowardly?) turn against half the population its own failures, weaknesses, and errors in institutional, economic and/or military matters.

Representations – that is to say, perceptions of identity and collectives that are part of “long periods of time” (Fernand Braudel) –, religious instrumentalization for the benefit of politics, control of resources and descendants…; we are clearly in a geopolitical pattern here. That is the observation. But ethics must never be eclipsed under the pretext of academic rigor and the constant, diligent and universal defense of women’s inalienable right to equality in respect and freedoms must not weaken, urbi et orbi. Because as Leo Strauss wrote, “if all customs are equal, then cannibalism is only a matter of taste.” If genital mutilation (not attributable to Islam since it is often found in Christian West African and Ethiopian areas, not at all in the Arab-Persian Gulf) is acceptable in other countries but not in the West, that is to say for some women but not others, universality collapses in favor of the expression of an authentic racism, perhaps the most perverse, that of relativism. And we will not forget that in France, a femicide takes place every three days…

* “Women and Power”, from September 19 to 22, 2024, Governors’ Lounge of the Casino Barrière. Program on the town hall website. FREE ENTRANCE.