Something promised, something due. After a novel about consent, toxic masculinity and the culture of rape last year, Janette Bertrand comes back to us these days with a sequel, still as topical as ever, this time focused on the solution. Because there is a solution, she insists. And she’s not that far.
In Just a man, published by Libre Expression, the great lady of television, prolific author and renowned playwright, who this year received the Guy Corneau Hommage award for her contribution to the well-being of men, go to her suggestions for putting an end to the patriarchy. Downright. Objective: finally to achieve equality. And against all odds, it is not complicated, she sums up: “I offer something in which I believe a lot. To achieve equality, men must change! ” How? ‘Or’ What ? His book offers a lead. She generously welcomed us to her home to discuss it, in addition to her countless projects.
Because if she has to blow out her 97 candles in a few months, Janette Bertrand has not said her last word. Far from there. “I always have a novel on the way while another goes out,” she smiles, comfortably seated at her dining table, with a breathtaking view of the city center. Looks like I’m afraid of falling into the void! It’s sick, my business! she chuckles. In addition it makes no sense that I write, I am dyslexic! And it doesn’t get better as I get older, I make mistakes! But I am a girl of challenges… ”, she slips, in the tone of frank confidence, which will not leave her during the interview.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, THE PRESS
Janette bertrand
The girls have made their way, now the men must do theirs.
Janette Bertrand, author
“Because if we continue like this, if the men don’t change, there will be a gap,” she continues. And there is already one among young people. “As proof:” Girls no longer need to say it: they are feminists. While boys go for patriarchy in porn. There is a divide. ”
In his novel, which picks up exactly where the previous one (Ordinary rape, published last year) had left us, so we find his main character, a certain Laurent, accused of sexual assault by his ex-girlfriend. Although surrounded by “Cro-Magnon” friends (and Janette Bertrand did not invent their discussions, as stereotypical as they are, she assures), he recognizes his faults, wishes to change, but does not really know how. As a bonus, he doesn’t know how to be forgiven. Now, Léa, her ex, suggests an innovative path, which we have not heard much of, in the debate surrounding #moiaussi and the unreported assaults. Namely: restorative justice.
An “extraordinary” path
What is it about ? “It’s a form of mediation based on respect, compassion, inclusion,” she writes. A sort of “amicable” settlement, restorative justice “promotes dialogue and redress in a safe and benevolent environment”. Mediation orchestrated by a third party, therefore, to allow the aggressor to find the means to right his wrongs in relation to the victim.
“This is another way that justice offers us to settle things. And it is copied from the natives, ”adds Janette Bertrand in an interview. Parenthesis: she used it a number of years ago with her partner (“We’ve been together for 40 years! And it was not supposed to last, a man 20 years younger! How time flies) … ”).
We were in conflict, and we resorted to mediation. I found that extraordinary!
Janette Bertrand, author
For his novel, and like a good journalist (“I have a whole network of sources […] and I take as much time to do the research as to write ”), here she contacted a series of judges and lawyers to find out more. To understand. And explain well. And it shows. The subject takes at times a downright didactic tone. “It’s a delicate subject, she knows, but as at the moment justice is not done for the victims – and I hope that will change – there is that which is offered to us. You might as well communicate it.
Admittedly, she nuances, “it is not made for everyone”, and “it is not good for all the rapes”, but for “all those things which do not deserve the prison”, like the type of rape called “marital” in question, why not? “The goal is for both sides to come out happy. ”
Change better
In addition to restorative justice, a clever way to get around a painful trial, it should be noted, Janette Bertrand also plunges her main character into a support group. For men. Between men. The book also suggests a list, as a reference. A group where empathy, respect and sharing reign, where men dare sensitivity and vulnerability. “Here, we don’t discuss work, hockey, politics. We talk about ourselves, in depth. You open your heart, ”she wrote. Objective: to leave aside the “real man”, to become “a man, quite simply”.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, THE PRESS
Janette bertrand
To write these scenes, Janette Bertrand also attended such meetings (“on Zoom ! It was complicated! ») And she comes out stirred. “I met some amazing men, and that gave me a lot of hope. A lot of hope, ”she insists. Because there are vulnerable men who talk about their emotions.
And that’s why I wrote this book. There, I finished on this theme. I have come full circle, all the elements are there for there to be greater equality between men and women. […] I said everything I thought.
Janette Bertrand, author
And she believes in it “a lot”. But do not believe that Janette Bertrand puts the pen here for all that. She is actually working these days on a book on the history of French Canadians with a historian, dreams of a TV show on the subject, and even cooking up a project on old age. Tireless, you say? “There are more and more old people that we never talk about, as if they were already dead. But we exist, we think. And we can get things done, ”she concludes. She is the incarnate proof of that.
A man, quite simply
Janette bertrand
Free expression
182 pages