Icy reception of the first feminists, unleashing of misogyny in the media… “Sensitive Affairs” returns to the laborious implementation of the “Year of the Woman” in France.
Who remembers it today? The United Nations decided to make 1975 “International Women’s Year”. The magazine “Affaires Sensitive” looks back on the laborious musicalization of this UN initiative by the French government at the time.
Icy reception of the first feminists, unleashing of misogyny even in the traditional media, this “International Women’s Year” with multiple twists and turns in France was the scene of incredible excesses. The show presented by Fabrice Drouelle chronicles this incredible story, which resonates and astonishes in these post-MeToo years.
A first State Secretariat for the Status of Women
In France, in 1975, it was Françoise Giroud who was responsible for organizing International Women’s Year. She was appointed a few months earlier as head of the first State Secretariat responsible for the Status of Women by the President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
She will find herself confronted by the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF), which is organizing a demonstration on March 8 against this Year of Women, which it considers to be a “masquerade”. Two conceptions of feminism clash, one reformist defended by the Secretary of State, the other revolutionary.
A conservative France, attached to the patriarchal model
Françoise Giroud will also be confronted with the taunts of conservative France of the time, attached to the patriarchal model. As evidenced by his live interview in a program presented by Bernard Pivot, whose title, alone, sets the tone: “One more day and the year of the woman, phew! It’s over!”
“Sensitive Affairs” collected testimonies from the closest collaborators of the Secretary of State, Françoise Giroud. Arlette Chabot, a young 23-year-old journalist and a rare woman in this profession at the time, remembers her interview with the President of the Republic carried out as part of a special program. MLF activists make us relive this fight they led more than 45 years ago.
A documentary by Alexis de La Fontaine, David Beaucaire, Bruno Maruani / France TV Presse.
“Sensitive Affairs”, a co-production between France Télévisions, France TV presse, France Inter and INA, adapted from a France Inter broadcast.
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