To mark five years of the #MoiAussi (#MeToo) movement, The duty offers a series texts showing the path taken or drawing up an inventory of the situation in different cultural sectors.
July 2020. For the past few months, Quebec has been going through the second wave of the #MeToo movement, which denounces the sexual violence suffered by women and the culture of rape. After months of discussions about their work environment, 150 Quebec women writers publish a collective text intended for the literary community. Together, they denounce the “culture of silence favoring violence of a sexual nature, which has been rife in the literary world for several years, even decades”, and demand that this speaking out be followed by firm commitments, “reforms and ‘clear, concrete and transparent restorative actions, in order to break this culture of silence and put an end to the violence that it conceals and maintains’.
In the wake of this cry from the heart, all the major literary organizations — the Union of Quebec Writers and Writers, the Association of Quebec Booksellers and the National Association of Book Publishers — assured the writers of their support and promised to take action.
“What this outpouring of solidarity between the authors has demonstrated, above all, is the idea that the safety of women still today rests entirely on the main stakeholders,” underlines Mylène Bédard, professor at Laval University and specialist women’s literature. They are the ones who must act as safeguards, warn each other of dangers, hold this truth at arm’s length in the public square. The literature bears witness to this burden. I am thinking, for example, of the novel Fury [Poètes de brousse, 2020], by Myriam Vincent, who pushes this proposal to the extreme. It depicts a normal citizen who becomes a hitman to make criminals pay and fill the gaps in the traditional justice system. »
Although steps have indeed been taken — including offering support and information to emerging writers — the situation on the ground has not really changed. “Bookmakers are often in a financially precarious situation which makes them more vulnerable and prone to accept conditions of abuse of power,” explains writer Olivia Tapiero. We are part of a system based on exploitation. From the moment we unbolt figures that bring down the machine, people — through silence or indifference — always end up choosing the machine. Institutions are worth more than bodies, and speaking out is only possible if there is value—a book that sells—at the end, a structure that greatly affects the visibility of the experiences of nonconforming voices. gendered or racialized. »
Take over
Feminist literature in Quebec did not need #MeToo to flourish. For a long time, authors have taken up the pen to report on the reality of women, denounce the abuse of power, affirm the strength of intimate literature or deconstruct the mechanisms in place aimed at silencing women or relegating them to certain genres or literary codes. The denunciation movement has, however, enhanced this space of writing, and has allowed new voices to inhabit it, to radiate their anger, to reconstruct their perception of the world, to reject the status quo.
“#MeToo gave me a form of permission to write, says Marie-Pier Lafontaine, whose novel Female dog (Héliotrope, 2019) recounts a childhood spent under the yoke of a violent, incestuous and misogynistic father. I had for the first time the impression that the mirror was changing sides, that the shame could be moved from the shoulders of the victims to those of the aggressors. »
Sophie Létourneau, for her part, had been working on her novel for some time. Manhunt (La Peuplade, 2020) when the first wave of denunciations was triggered. “I was looking for a way, through the love quest at the heart of the story, to highlight the misogyny and the heritage culture that characterize the literary and academic worlds. I didn’t know how to go about attacking an entire value system. Then, #MeToo validated this awareness. I was able to integrate it into the narration by relying on the fact that the readers were aware [de ce déséquilibre]. »
Manhunt earned its author a Governor General’s Literary Award. “That year, we were only nominated women, authors of confessional works, in connection with the feminine reality. For a long time, works written by women were criticized for their relationship to intimacy. Things change. Annie Ernaux has just won the Nobel Prize after all. I also think that women give themselves more legitimacy, and that this assumed voice has an impact on institutions. »
Marie-Pier Lafontaine also feels that #MeToo has had a positive influence on the reception of female voices. “I felt a form of delicacy and sensitivity on the part of the journalists, whose questions were more oriented towards literature than towards my personal life – which was not the case, for example, for Nelly Arcan. It influenced the way I was able to talk about the project. However, there is still a long way to go before the microphone is no longer stretched out to attackers. We must continue to fight. »
What #MeToo has demonstrated, above all, is that literature has the potential to become a lever for emancipation. “Evolution is slow, but when it comes to speaking, Quebec female writers have shown a freedom which, both in terms of numbers and quality, can no longer be ignored. Throughout history, feminist waves have always had a backlash. Writers will have to face it together so as not to be deflected from this powerful weapon that is literature,” concludes Mylène Bédard.