“Question de société” returns today to this platform which caused a stir, published in “Télérama” this week, a text in which the actress Adèle Haenel explains that she has stopped the cinema, in particular because this medium would leave too often engage in unacceptable sexist behavior. Decryption with the sociologist Jean Viard.
The actress Adele Haenel, César for Best Actress in 2015 for The fighters, explains this week in a letter published on the Télérama website (paid article), the reasons for his withdrawal from French cinema, in particular to denounce “the general complacency of the profession vis-à-vis sexual aggressors, and, more generally, the way whose environment collaborates with the deadly racist ecocidal order of the world as it is”. This raises more broadly the question of the real impact of the movement #MeToo, five years later, throughout French society. In the media, it’s true that the impact has been spectacular.
franceinfo: In fact, Jean Viard, have things changed? Or, as Adèle Haenel says, concerning her professional environment, are these only surface changes?
John Viard: So, Adèle Haenel is extremely radical, and besides, I’m not a woman, so I don’t necessarily have quite the same perception. But I believe that something has happened in the relationship between men and women in our societies throughout the previous century, and that #MeToo has accelerated this process, with excesses too, like any revolution. But it’s not the excesses that make revolutions judged, it’s what happens afterwards. And so I think that the relationship between men and women is indeed changing profoundly, but this relationship, at the same time, is built on a culture – it’s very difficult to change the culture – and then it’s built on our memory, learned behaviors, etc. What also strikes me is the gap between the generations.
I would say that there are those who know what not to say anymore, and those who spontaneously no longer want to say it, for example on a certain number of jokes. In other words, the memory of the generations is not the same, so we are in a process that will take time, where we can clearly see that the position of women, whether on the labor market , on their autonomy, on many subjects, and obviously on their autonomy in having children or not, all of these are elements that have been built up, which have been accelerated recently.
After some find that things are not going fast enough, that there are lots of places of tension, a lot of machismo in lots of places, I am completely convinced of it. But I believe that in this society, you should never say: you haven’t done anything. It must be said: we’re changing, we’re accelerating, I think we’ve done a lot all the same, there are a lot of behaviors that have evolved, a lot of men who “stand” a little better, if I may talk like that, or who, in any case, know a little about how women expect us to hold each other. But afterwards, women are not a completely homogeneous group either. There are different behaviors, but you have to say to yourself: it’s a path that has been opened and that is moving forward.
One can nevertheless have the impression that there are two somewhat antagonistic dynamics with, on the one hand, public speaking, which is different from a few years ago, with a Ministry for Equality between Women and men, which did not exist previously, but the wage gaps are still gigantic. The number of feminicides, we see it every year, is not decreasing. There is still work…
So, it’s not quite the same subject, but indeed, feminicides are extremely worrying, at the same time, it’s partly linked to the great pandemic. There are 1 million couples who could not bear to find themselves locked in a pandemic, and therefore there is an explosion of violence in these couples, following an exceptional situation. But what is true is that when we see what Spain is doing which, in our own cartoons, is rather a somewhat macho country, the country manages to do an enormous amount of work vis-à-vis feminicides , vis-à-vis the male attitude, so that means that at some point, there are forms of political will in a society, which make it possible to change even more radically than France did.
Spain is a good example to show that we can certainly go faster. We can find ways, we also need to talk more to violent men, there is a whole reflection on this kind of feeling of ownership, that some men have of their women’s bodies, which is all the same quite unimaginable, but which historically can be understood. Now, it is clear that the intimate sphere has taken an important place, and this is good news in some way, because we can clearly see this with marriage for all, we are in a very sensitive evolution, at the level of freedom in the intimate sphere is very positive.
It is very difficult to change cultural structures. It’s easier to redesign cars or make wooden towers, you can change your practice relatively quickly. Culture is a huge job to make it evolve, and this job, we must do it all together. It’s not only a question of women’s work, it’s also very much a question of men’s and fathers’ work.