A coffee with Kim Lévesque-Lizotte | For a feminist revolution

Kim Lévesque-Lizotte arrives at Café Sfouf, rue Ontario, slightly late. Work-strike-family balance. The comedian, columnist, screenwriter (The Simones, Turn, Before the crash) – and incidentally the mother of a 5-year-old girl – managed to free up time to devote two hours to an interview with me, before a shoot.

” I talk a lot ! “, she warned me, when I suggested that we discuss the impact that the Polytechnique tragedy had on her, who was too young on December 6, 1989 to grasp the full extent and nuances. “I’m a little ADHD, so sometimes I go in one direction… Feel free to bring me back on track! ”, she told me.

I encounter a feminist tornado. A mill of words and ideas which has been thinking for years about its place, and that of women in general, in our patriarchal society. She was 5 years old, like her daughter, when Marc Lépine entered the École Polytechnique and killed 14 women in 19 minutes, separating them from the men and leaving behind a misogynistic indictment as well as a list of feminists whom he would have liked to kill.

Kim Lévesque-Lizotte has no specific memory of Poly, but does remember a book that her mother, who was the age of the victims, had bought a few weeks later. In Manifesto of a bastardthe journalist Roch Côté claimed that “feminist discourse on violence is irrational and unfounded” and criticized Quebec feminists for using the Polytechnique massacre in order to better make men feel guilty.

“For 20 years of my life, I really integrated this discourse of the madman, the wolf in the sheepfold, the isolated incident,” explains the author. Above all, we should not give the impression of putting all men in the same basket. Manifesto of a bastard, it was this: I’m not that bastard, I’m not that terrorist, I have nothing to do with Marc Lépine. »

In the aftermath of the killing, Marie-Joanne Boucher, co-author of the play, recently recalled in an interview Polytechnic Project (currently on display at TNM), people called into the telephone forums to say that feminists were taking up a lot of space in society.

“As if that’s to be expected.” When this kind of tragedy happens, we must quickly remember that our fathers, our grandfathers and our friends are good people. I think it’s a normal defense mechanism to say to yourself: I’m not that. But that prevents us from confronting the problem, which is tenfold today because in 1989, we did not want to confront it. »

It was by hearing journalist Francine Pelletier in an interview five years ago, targeted at the time in Marc Lépine’s list, that Kim Lévesque-Lizotte said she fully understood that Poly was a hate crime against women, and not this isolated act that some wanted to see.

However, the police did everything to ensure that Marc Lépine’s misogynistic letter was not made public, in order to prevent – ​​they claimed – that it would encourage other men to commit similar crimes. In doing so, they hid from the public for months what pushed Lépine to commit his crime. It is thanks to Francine Pelletier that it was published in The Pressalmost a year later.

“Even if the epitète (sic) Tireur Fou will be attributed to me (sic) in the media, I consider myself a rational scholar,” wrote Lépine, in an anti-feminist diatribe which is reminiscent of certain current masculinist discourses .

The Undertow Andrew Tate

Our discussion inevitably turns towards Andrew Tate, this misogynist influencer accused of rape, indicted for trafficking women for sexual exploitation, who nevertheless has millions of followers among adolescents and young men, particularly in Quebec.

“We live in a capitalist society which places a lot of importance on image. Having money, having as many conquests as possible, having beautiful linen, a beautiful tank, being muscular, whether you like it or not, masculinist or not, is valued. When you are a boy of 15, 16 or 20 and Andrew Tate tells you that you will have access to all this easily if you follow his advice, you can be convinced. I see this as negative personal growth. Andrew Tate, it’s a symptom. »

The author has empathy for these young men who experience painful romantic breakups, perceived as betrayals, and who console themselves by drinking the reassuring words of masculinist gurus.

She finds, in general, that we talk a lot about the plight of boys radicalized by the Andrew Tates of the manosphere, but little about the impact of this radicalization on adolescent girls and young women, who are just as vulnerable. “What scares me right now is the undertow. We go backwards. Women are quickly reduced to the state of objects,” recalls Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, headliner in 2021 of the documentary Hello, here is my penis on the dick pics.

“To what extent do we despise women, collectively, to conclude that a young man who borrows feminine codes, who wears a skirt or puts on nail polish, is not emancipating himself, but is a deviant who causes society to regress? », she asks.

She borrows my notebook and literally draws me a picture. She draws a circular diagram divided in two, with the letter F (for women) on one side and H (for men) on the other. Below, she draws another circle, in which she draws a small slice of pie where she writes an F. This second diagram, she concludes, is the one which best illustrates the feminist fight against the status quo, which does not engage in on equal terms.

The feminist revolution

“I have nothing subversive,” Kim Lévesque-Lizotte assures me. However, she imagined, half fig, half grape, a guide to the feminist revolution which relies on the tools of patriarchy, starting with economic power.

“A real revolution will be possible when feminists are truly radical and no longer do babies, cook or do housework. There will be no more work-family balance or mental burden for women. Feminists will only work and become an essential economic force. We love men so much that we are not capable of doing that! “, she said, laughing.

She herself was raised in Bas-Saint-Laurent and in Quebec by an avant-garde father who, she says, bore most of the mental load.

If she harbors any optimism for her daughter, it is thanks to the fact that she herself is better equipped to guide her in her role as a mother since the #metoo phenomenon. She had an epiphany, she says, when she learned of the term a few years ago gaslighting (cognitive diversion), the meaning of which she did not know. She is convinced that her daughter will know better than her when she is being manipulated or that her emotions are being invalidated.

Kim Lévesque-Lizotte is sometimes upset by the reactions that her speaking engagements provoke, particularly on broadcasts Good evening ! Or Everybody talks about it (“Women who move air, that’s disturbing!” she notes). But it was the virulent responses to her statuses about Amber Heard, whose defense she defended on social networks against Johnny Depp, which completely prevented her from sleeping.

“We must stop condemning women who are victims of violence. They are our sisters, our daughters, our friends, our colleagues. Women have written to me to tell me about the consequences of their sexual assault. These are small deaths. Most women will experience something ranging from microaggression to rape. The 14 victims of Poly would contribute to society today. Some would have children. They were prevented from flourishing and emancipating themselves. This is something that is done to women on a smaller scale. This violence ensures that men maintain control over women. »