[Critique] “Rael’s Women”: The Origins of the Male

Rael’s women is an almost mind-blowing immersion in the sectarian movement. Director Érika Reyburn, with screenwriters Johanne de Bellefeuille and Pierre Couture, offers a very interesting reflection on the reasons that can lead some people to join the sect. Martine and Sylvie, ex-Raëlians who were very influential within the group until 2003 and 2017 respectively, but also another former member, Jean-Pierre, deliver precious testimonies to the camera on the tendentious methods of the Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, a treacherous guru who calls himself Raël and who established his quarters in Quebec from the 1970s until the 2000s.

According to Martine and Sylvie, Raël’s sect is only a fatal illusion which makes women believe that they will emancipate themselves by joining it. Moreover, their sensational confessions prove that it is a fundamentally misogynistic and lying movement that destroys any notion of consent. “We thought we were at the service of something grand, but we were in fact at the service of one man,” they denounce bluntly.

In a short time, Raël, a great admirer of the founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner, has indeed succeeded in imposing on his disciples an almost exclusively male direction, the cult of the female body and the rejection of older women. Always according to his own sexist vision of the world, he also encourages his members not to have children and strongly invites them to licentiousness. A micropatriarchy in due form, after all.

Rael’s women

ICI Télé, Saturday January 14 at 10:30 p.m. and on ICI tou.tv

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