Abolishing the border between the private sphere and public life is the characteristic of totalitarianism. This is what neo-feminists want to impose. In The private is not politicalClaude Habib denounces this desire to make the home the arena of combat between the man who is obviously the executioner and the woman who is obviously the victim.
Talker. With an essay entitled The private is not politicalare you hoping to throw a wrench in the pond of feminism?
Claude Habib. May 68 had the slogan “it’s all politics”and feminism of the time adopted it by specifying it: “the private is political”. At the risk of abolishing a fundamental distinction. Feminists who came from the anti-totalitarian left had reservations: when you read Hannah Arendt, you see the problem. What distinguishes totalitarianism from tyranny is precisely the abolition of this border. Each totalitarianism organizes a totally politicized world, where pledges of adhesion are permanently required, even in the privacy of the home. Whether to ensure the victory of the proletariat or the purity of the race, the party encourages denunciation within families. 1984 also tells this: the impossibility of withdrawal, of secrecy and of the romantic bond in a totalitarian universe.
Why is this slogan reactivated by current feminists?
“The private is political” is an indictment. From the moment women obtained the same rights as men and the principles of equality prevailed in the public sphere, at school, in cultural productions – even Barbie is in the fight against patriarchy – we could suppose that feminism disappears. However, this triumph opened a new cycle of demands. The demand for equality has moved from the public sphere to the private sphere, as if families were the reservoirs of domination. Therefore, it is everyone’s duty to track this virus at home. Every feminist must lead the fight within her home. Remember Sandrine Rousseau proposing to create a “crime of not sharing domestic chores”.
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You say with humor that this slogan was intended to “giving domestic exasperations the dignity of a class conflict”…
To see the couple as the ultimate den of inequality is to miss the target. The house is par excellence the place for expressing differences: differences linked to sex, and those linked to tastes, ages, personalities. We lose sight of the diversity of families, the multiplicity of life choices, the impenetrable nature of their relationships. Who dominates? It varies. Women are presented as the eternal losers, men as profiteers and culprits, as if women's desire for expansion through love and childbearing counted for nothing in the formation of bonds and the management of daily life. As if intimacy wasn't for them Also an experience of power and freedom.
How is this way of seeing destructive?
Politics is the place of permanent confrontation. The conflict can be explosive or ritualized in public debate and channeled by democratic regulations. Tension is essential, because in democracy it is necessary for differences to be expressed. Private ties are experienced quite differently. The goal is not tension but relaxation, not discord but security, not contention but mutual affection. Intimacy is the place of rest and meals, of vulnerability, of sexuality. If the private is reduced to the place where male domination is exercised, there is nothing to do but protect oneself from it. Loneliness or homosexuality is Alice Coffin's answer: “Not having a husband exposes me to not being raped, not being killed, not being beaten up. » Feminist discourse rarely goes this far, but that's the general direction. Advocating permanent confrontation in the context of private life is to undermine the couple and family life. In this context, good feelings for one's own are alienation. To love is to be fooled.
Should a woman give up family life and a relationship to be free?
Of course not: the freedom to love is the first of all for women, as we see, on the contraryin countries that still practice forced marriages. Moreover, the emphasis on the “deconstructed” man disguises, in a woke vocabulary, perfectly traditional expectations: that of finding a caring and reliable man. The fact remains that the development of women in family life is still frowned upon by radical feminists: a happy woman compromises the just cause. Instead of understanding that she is locked into a structure of oppression, she puts her energy and joy into creating private connections. She needs to be re-educated. His awakening to consciousness will involve revolt against patriarchy, embodied, in this case, by the male partner. From this perspective, the growth of unease in the couple will be the mark of its liberation.
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118 women were killed in 2022, if we put this figure in relation to the 15.5 million women who live as a couple, can we say, as the current discourse wants, that women are confronted with omnipresent male violence , tolerated or even encouraged?
Acting against femicide is an excellent thing. The example of Spain, which reduced their numbers, proves that it is possible. There is also no resistance. The government is showing its support for victims and its determination in the face of violence against women. However, the feeling of persecution does not diminish, hence the permanence of the accusatory discourse: society would make fun of the fate of women. Who's kidding who? Neofeminism has chosen the massification of grievances. Individual destinies are crushed in favor of a Manichean logic: each victim is only a sample of the collective misfortune of women. Each executioner, a representative of male violence. It is forgetting that we are individuals, it is refusing to hear the unique part of each story. The notion of crime of passion is the bane of feminists, as if it served to exonerate men. However, the crime of passion is obvious when the assassin kills himself. Killing yourself is not dominating anyone. Refusing to take into account the passionate aspects has only one goal: to harden the antagonism. The male executioner/female victim couple would reveal a raging war of the sexes. Personally, I don't believe it.
