Rose Lamy has chosen a pseudonym to list since 2019 the sexist and anti-feminist remarks conveyed in the media. Her Instagram account Prepare for the fight is a success, the number of subscribers is on the way to reach 200,000. Former crisis management communicator, the young woman has decided to make her stalking a book Prepare for the fight. Defeating sexist discourse in the media published by JC Lattès.
“I found that we were indignant about a feminicide for example and that after we moved on.”
“I had the intuition that if I put everything in the same place, we could bring to light a mechanism that would link the events together”, explains Rose Lamy on franceinfo. In her book, she believes that editorial staff keep silent or relegate gender-based and sexual violence to the periphery of some.
If this was a reality a few years ago, is it still the case today? “Perhaps more completely, things are progressing, she concedes. But I was based on an important affair in my feminist construction which is ten years old, it is the DSK affair. One sentence marked me, it was in the Chained Duck which said: ‘the information stops at the bedroom door’. “” I find that it is quite revealing on the relation to the sphere private sector which remains strong in France. There would be a world we don’t have the right to investigate. But what if we look behind the door and it’s rape or incest? The media and justice must intervene, it becomes a public problem and not a private one “, is indignant Rose Lamy This New York Sofitel affair dates back to 2011.
At the time, the relatives of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, mainly politicians, took turns on the sets to defend the honor of their friend and sometimes denigrate Nafissatou Diallo. Ten years later, no one has come to say the same thing for Nicolas Hulot. Sign of a change in mentalities? “Yes, things are better, but we are reaching a new stage: the disqualification of the victims’ words and when we believe them and we stop taking the accused at their word”, said Rose Lamy.
Rose Lamy also castigates the touting or comical headlines of the written press to evoke violence against women. An example : “He builds up the pressure and hits his wife whom he suspects of having drunk beer. “ Elegant play on words to talk about an assault. “It is part of a long process of dehumanizing the women that I try to highlight in the book. We also dehumanize them by not giving them a first name or by talking about their outfit rather than their ideas.”
Another observation made by Rose Lamy: the use of euphemisms in the media. Sexual assault or rape are often qualified as touching, inappropriate gestures, wandering hands: “It’s a big part of the book and it’s the heart of what I do with my Instagram account: the semantics. I’m struck by the fact that we still have a hard time using the right words, we talk about ‘touching, clumsiness, caresses. These words have no legal reality in the facts “, concludes Rose Lamy.