Yes to feminism, no to feminists ritten by Michelle Dumont exert from The Montreal

dassacre edited by Louise Malette and Marie halouh.

printed with the king permission of Gynergy Books 'O Box 2023 Ch’town PEI CIA 7N7

ice the sixth of December, the word FEMINIST has hown up everywhere in the media, ranging in mean-

ig from a condemnation (condemned to death, liter- lly) to a proclamation. Between these two poles, the eal nature of feminism has been overlooked-for it is tue that, most often, feminism is ignored. Be that as may, I wish to look at the ways in which History

as tried to accommodate this important social move- ent.

he word feminism is about a hundred years old. It sthought to have been used for the first time by fubertine Auclert in 1882 ina letter to a women’s ights activist. It is important to note that this word fas applied to a movement whose theoretical origins juld be traced back to the end of the eighteenth

er tury, and whose first political organization formed ound 1848. A women’srights movement has ex- ted fora century and a half, despite the fact that fost official accounts of history ignored this. The lovement spread throughout the majority of ecidental countries from the 1890's onward, and it ave rise toa network of national and international fganizations, next to which present day feminism

ies On comparison. The English suffragettes initi- ed at the beginning of the century-and this without Svernment subsidies acore group of eighty people

© were paid to work for the cause of women’s Wifrage, The French feminists published a daily vspaper, La Fronde, from 1897 to 1903 to publicize ir principal demands. Other examples abound. Note, this feminism, from the moment it first eared, provoked virulent reactions on the partof feral groups of men, which contributed to establish- a dichotomy between GOOD and BAD feminism.

If contemporary detractors of feminism were to read the feminist texts of that era, they would no doubt be dumbfounded by the reasonableness and timidity if the demands found in what was called BAD feminism. As for the GOOD feminism, it had already been co- opted by the religious and political authorities in order to give it a definition that would keep women connected to the private sphere, and in the context of family responsibilities. Women themselves supported this definition of GOOD feminism. To establish a distinction between several types of feminism is therefore not particularly original: it’sa phenomenon that dates back a hundred years, and it is nothing more than arudimentary strategy to divide the forces of protest. But let us continue.

Feminism, it appears, became lethargic not long after the First World War, after women were granted the right to vote. But this statement doesn’t stand up to careful examination. Indeed, the collective mobiliza- tion of French women was considerable between 1920 and 1940, on the issues.of votes for women, contra- ception, legislation and education. American women, from 1925 on, began the long struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment, and they established powerful women’s associations. And the Quebecoises began, against all expectations, to demand the right to vote in provincial elections.

After the disruption caused by the Second World War and the period of social conservation which followed, it took women some years to point out the profound inequalities of a social system which exploited their competence both in the home and at their paid job outside it. New circumstances, brought about by the gains of the earlier feminists, called fora new analy- sis. The word feminism, which had been set aside, came back into use to once again put aname to this complex concurrence of women’s demands. **Wom- en’s liberation, Year Zero!’ wrote the French femi- nists in 1970; they were apparently ignorant ofthe feminism which had gone before.

Over the past nearly thirty years in Quebec, since 1961, new demands have been drawn up.

In 1966, the Quebecoises endowed themselves with powerful organizations, such as the FFQ and the

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