the essential
The Toulouse academic Justine Zeller, doctor in contemporary history, publishes in the collection “That Year”, a book on the creation of the Maison des femmes in Toulouse in 1976 and on the dynamics of the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) in the Pink City. Interview.
What story does the creation of the Maison des femmes in Toulouse tell?
The Women’s House which opened on October 9, 1976, rue des Couteliers, was a very important place of the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF), an autonomous and single-sex feminist movement that appeared on the national and local scales in 1970. It emerged in a context where women’s houses or centers are opening throughout the country, even in several European states and in a period where the Toulouse MLF is diversifying at the theoretical and practical level. Thus, although its creation went relatively unnoticed locally, the place remained difficult to access and disagreements arose between activists, it was known to feminists and marked a turning point in the local, national, and even international movement.
“A festive and safe house”
What place was it on a daily basis?
The Women’s House is a festive and safe place, a “cocoon in a world of aggression and violence” as some activists explain. It is a place of daily life since its activists discuss, debate, eat, dance, craft and garden together. For example, they founded a “countryside, mountain, walking” group there. It is also a space for reflection and struggle around “sexuality, politics”, “rape, violence”, etc. In line with differentialist theories, activists reflect on the question “What is a woman?” » and have a particular interest in cinema and video. They analyze films or videos produced by and for men and highlight those made by and for women. Some of them founded, in 1977, the Ciné-club de la Maison des femmes de Toulouse, a film club which lasted until 1993. Writing is also a privileged means of expression. For example, activists have their own magazine, La Lune Rousse, in which each expresses themselves individually or collectively without any censorship.
A mecca of the lesbian movement
In 1976, was Toulouse at the forefront of the Women’s Liberation Movement?
Toulouse feminist groups were and still are very active at the local, national and international level. Very early on, MLF activists defended the importance and specificities of their movement, like Marie-France Brive, one of its great figures, who declared in 1992 that Toulouse was [encore] figure of a privileged place with an independent, multiple, diverse women’s movement, which, at the cost of severe challenges, continues to live… with two cafeterias, an establishment for women in difficulty, the APIAF, a film club and cultural and political encounters… From the 1990s onwards, the city also became a hotbed of the lesbian movement. Nevertheless, there is still a survisibility of the Parisian movement: although work on regional movements has increased in recent years, the works remain more numerous and its activists are sometimes covered in the media.
How can we explain the disappearance of the Maison des femmes, already 25 years ago?
Two main causes explain the closure of the Women’s House on rue des Couteliers in 1982. It was a period during which François Mitterrand was elected President of the Republic, which marked the running out of revolutionary utopias and the institutionalization growing feminism. On the one hand, like other women’s groups, houses or centers during the period, the place recorded a drop in attendance at the beginning of the 1980s. Some heterosexual activists disengaged from it in reaction to the “homo-centrism” that had become hegemonic or because this space is not always or no longer in line with the lifestyle of activists wishing to get involved there because they have children or full-time jobs. Other spaces, less politicized and more open to the rest of civil society, such as bookstores, film clubs, cafes, bars or restaurants, appear and become more attractive for feminists, particularly for the youngest. generations. On the other hand, the closure of the place is sudden and forced. In fact, by municipal order, the building was declared unsanitary and must be demolished. The association nevertheless tries to continue its activities. The activists close ranks with other Toulouse feminist groups and develop a regional feminist network. They also found new premises located on rue Riquet. But their activities became less and less numerous and the place closed its doors definitively in 1985. The association still continued until 1993, when the Ciné-club de la Maison des femmes de Toulouse closed down for good.
Feminist “waves”
What has changed in feminist activism?
To talk about the history of feminism, we often use the term “feminist waves”. There are four. The MLF is a central movement of the second wave feminists of the 1970s and 1980s and there are notable similarities and differences with the movements and associations of the third and fourth waves. Certain demands still remain today since, as Simone de Beauvoir announced in The Second Sex in 1949, “Women’s rights are never acquired”, as well as certain repertoires of action such as demonstrations or the holding of discussion groups. For example. However, the demands, actions, and modes of operation of groups or associations have also diversified and enriched with, for example, the diffusion of feminisms in the digital space or the strengthening of inclusive and intersectional feminisms.
