Before the alarm clock of the sixties sounded, L’Express honored female figures such as Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s. They embodied beauty, sensuality but above all and, already, a certain socio-professional accomplishment.
It was not until August 1966 that women’s physique ceased to be their major distinction. The magazine then brings up a (burning) question, that of the legalization of the pill. This is the theme on the front page of number 790: “Before 1967 the pill in France”: the newspaper then denounces “the absurdity, the obsolescence of the 1920 legislation”. In this context, French women observe their European neighbors having access to contraception.
By placing the pill on the cover of its August 8, 1966 issue, L’Express is committed to the legalization of contraception.
© / THE EXPRESS
Post-war France, which remains very patriarchal, can only open its eyes to feminist demands. At the time, the media chose to highlight the beginnings of this revolution. This is particularly the case with L’Express, which makes female voices heard. This front page on the pill marks a major turning point in the newspaper’s priorities.
In 1972, the feminist revolution was intriguing. In the issue entitled “Women seen by men”, it is however Michèle Cotta who signs the main article of this issue. In her survey, she explains: “men are not yet afraid of women”, “those who would adapt best to the situation (of the feminist revolt) are the small shopkeepers and the workers. The worst: the large traders and senior executives”. While mores are changing on the men’s side, those who run and control the country still have a major role to play. This gaze weighs on women who, themselves, do not yet feel ready to hold an important place in the hierarchy of work. The “second sex” is finally put forward, but it is always put in the passive voice: they are “seen by men”.
This masculine vision is balanced in the editorial staff of L’Express in the 1970s; there are already a certain number of women there, including one in particular at the head of the magazine: Françoise Giroud. The famous founder of L’Express was called by Giscard d’Estaing in July 1974 to take the post of Secretary of State in charge of the status of women. In one of L’Express, she then signs “The power of women” and affirms: “France is thus the first country in the world which marks, officially, its consideration with regard to women”.
L’Express of July 22, 1974 honors the fight for the emancipation of women led by its founder Françoise Giroud called to government by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as Secretary of State for the Status of Women.
© / PDS
The President of the Republic is moving things forward, but women must for their part accelerate the process of emancipation. In the columns of the newspaper, the lawyer Gisèle Halimi “advises all French women to enter working life, even at the cost of a double day’s work”. For these two figures of feminism, work is the only way to roll back enslavement: “otherwise, you will find yourself one day perhaps socialists, but surely oppressed”.
Two years later, Françoise Giroud propelled on the cover of the weekly the subject: “How French women see themselves”. She is carrying out a long investigation in order “to support the new action program that the Secretary of State for the Status of Women is going to propose to the government”. Indeed, the survey shows that he still has work to do: “41% of women” declare themselves incapable of “positioning themselves on the political spectrum”, “37% would prefer to be a man”, 20% “show an offensive will of change”. That is to say “how strong is this desire to exist other than as a beneficiary. Having the right to the social security of the husband, having the right to the name of the husband, and always designated as the wife of. Of the baker or the prosecutor”.
L’Express of January 19, 1976 paints a portrait of “the French female population seized in its behavior, with its fears, its desires, its contradictions and its hopes.”
© / The Express
After the great feminist struggles
In 1999, things changed a lot because, this time, we can read on the cover of n° 2499: “Women judge men”. The newspaper asked thirteen women photographers their vision of men “after the great feminist struggles”. It is their turn to question the place of men in this brand new society.
L’Express is a magazine which very quickly understood the stakes of the feminist revolution in France. He let the women of the editorial staff express themselves on a subject that concerns them while highlighting their demands. After the new millennium, the newspaper honors “the most powerful women in France”. More than the vision of women, their place, now high in society, is put in the foreground. At the dawn of the year 2000, the modern woman seems to have all the tools in hand to acquire equality. A fight that is still necessary, however.