“Disguising the Patriarchy”, a podcast on Swiss feminism

Passionate about books and documentary research, Clémentine Cuvit, 35, launched her podcast in 2021. For real saw the light of day shortly after her daughter, while the adopted Friborg resident (she grew up in Payerne) worked part-time and felt the desire to engage in a new, stimulating project in complete independence. “I like the immersive format of the podcast, I listen to a lot of them, The Powder has Shock Metapassing through Bliss Stories. Supported by the encouragement of my companion, I launched myself,” recalls the young woman.

News stories, biographies, Clémentine tells true stories in its episodes lasting around thirty minutes, such as the journey of the artist and sex worker Grisélidis Réal, the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969 marking the beginning of an LGBTIQ+ movement, or the cyberharassment case known as Gamergate, which targeted women in the video game industry. Varied themes, always from a feminist and committed perspective.

Overthrowing the patriarchy with in-depth podcast episodes

For the summer of 2023, the amateur podcaster – also a documentalist at the Cantonal and University Library of Friborg – had the idea of ​​launching a somewhat special series.

“When I was preparing my episode of For real on Elisabeth Kopp, I realized that I knew little about the story of this very first federal councilor, who died this spring. My reflection went further: in fact, I didn’t know much about feminist struggles in Switzerland, Clémentine continues. So there is the language barrier, but how come I missed this whole part of History, even though I am a person involved and familiar with many big foreign names in feminism, like Simone de Beauvoir or Olympe de Gouges?

This is how the librarian immersed herself in the Swiss history of women’s rights and imagined Undressing the patriarchythe ten-episode summer series from For real, broadcast on all listening platforms since June, with one episode per week. A bonus interview with a specialist in feminist movements will be released on August 25, 2023 to mark the end of the summer series.

“For the title, in a nod to the Swiss language, I chose the regional verb “déguiller”, which means “to bring down”, says Clémentine with humor. In the credits, we also hear my parents and my brother repeating this term with their Vaudois accent. I recorded them in secret.” This phrase is also the message that the activist drew on her cardboard sign, on the occasion of the last strike on June 14. Demonstration in which she participated with her daughter.

A feminist, Clémentine did not become one following a particular event. “I have always admired strong and independent female figures, I didn’t have that many around me. My earliest memory of feminist thinking is the mature work I did in the gym, at a time when women’s rights movements didn’t have much of a voice. My subject?, she smiles. The image of the French-speaking woman in Femina! I no longer remember what I wrote, but I believe that the same injunctions still weigh on women, around twenty years later. A reading of King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes and a #MeToo movement later convinced Clémentine of the necessity of feminist struggles.

From the giant snail to the June 14 strikes

With Undressing the patriarchyLa Fribourgeoise addresses the history of feminist struggles in chronological order, from the birth of the first wave in Switzerland at the end of the 19th century, through the portrait of Emilie Gourd, the right to vote in 1971, the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF), maternity insurance in 2005, the figure of Christiane Brunner, until the current strikes.

Clémentine relates the chosen stories like a storyteller. She is keen to popularize her subjects so that they are accessible to everyone. The stories of Undressing the patriarchy are meticulously researched and teeming with details. We learn in particular that Christiane Brunner went on a laundry strike because her husband – who was opposed to her studies as a lawyer – did not participate in domestic work, that lesbian working groups of the MLF were already criticizing heteronormativity a long time ago. at 50 years old, that women’s suffrage required more than fifty votes before finally being accepted by Swiss men, or that a Geneva movement campaigned in the 70s for the introduction of wages for housework.

“By studying the sources, new ideas for subjects accumulated,” says Clémentine, speaking of her working method. From six planned episodes, I went to ten. I could have done twenty, and more, who knows? History has often been written by men. If we made the effort to take an interest in women, I believe we would still discover little-known associations and heroines. The history of Swiss feminism is just waiting to be highlighted, argues the podcaster. Look at Iris Von Roten: the flagship manifesto of this German-speaking activist, dating from 1958, was only translated into French in 2021! I want to read more texts by Swiss feminists, because it’s thanks to them that we are where we are today.”

During her research, Clémentine realizes that a large part of the demands of our elders are the same as in 2023. “Ordinary sexism, the sharing of domestic tasks, equal pay, even the action of feminizing the public space with street names… Equality is moving forward, but the backlash is powerful today. Little anecdote: in 1928, during a conference on women’s work in Bern, some people made a giant paper mache snail to show their fed up. In question? The slow evolution of women’s political rights.

Almost 100 years later, while equality between women and men has still not been achieved in Switzerland, wouldn’t we want to imitate our great-grandmothers by building a new symbolic gastropod?

Laurène Ischi is a journalist within the digital team at Tamedia. After a bachelor’s degree in literature in Lausanne, she obtained her master’s degree at the Academy of Journalism and Media of the University of Neuchâtel in 2021. She is passionate about social issues and worked for “Femina” for 4 years.More info

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