Feminism has long been a woman’s thing.
By the way, it makes sense,
we are the first concerned.
I would like to see if there are women here.
Makes some noise.
Great. It’s great.
What do men do?
Do they have the right to be feminists?
I am a feminist and a fashion entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur since last year and feminist since always.
Because it always seemed incomprehensible
that women have less recognition and freedom,
just for a sex affair.
So being a feminist, for me, it has always been very natural.
By cons, which was much less natural …
As a feminist, how can I interact with men?
Do I need them?
Can they be helpful to the question?
No, huh.
When I was little, the answer was, “No,”
even outright: “Of course not. “
Demonstration: Boys have the right to do more things.
Yet, they have lower grades, it’s proven.
Politicians are all gray-haired men
if I believe the history classes,
gray-haired men did anything over 2 millennia,
and especially during the last century.
When a model does not work, it is replaced. QED.
But what are we waiting for to replace men by women?
(Applause)
Here, I was in my period “anti-man feminism”
who has fed on both a desire for historical revenge
and a deep sense of injustice that started right at the playground.
Why can they fight?
and why can not I slap them when today,
the game of forced kisses, it amuses me?
Why do adults find these differences normal?
And why do they say to me:
“Mary, calm down. It’s normal, it’s a boy. That’s it, a boy. “
Oh yeah ? Well it sucks.
This kind of argument: “It’s normal, that’s what a boy,”
I heard him a lot. Too much heard.
And both my parents were psy,
so it was their job to ask “why”.
So I too learned to ask questions, but that was not enough for me.
I wanted to question things.
In fact, I wanted to change the world.
When I was 17, I left the boarding school,
I left Brittany, I joined Sciences Po.
I worked a lot, I partied a lot,
and I discovered myself bisexual.
It was not easy right away on all fronts, far from it.
But at least, in terms of feminism, it was simpler.
At that time, the guys, they were peeps or sex toys.
There are some who do not seem to find that cool.
I agree with you. That’s not cool.
It’s not cool to take someone for an object.
But that’s also what I experienced, like so many other 20-year-old girls.
In the street, in the evening, on holidays, everyday.
To accept it, to play it, to do the same thing, it was easier,
stronger, and almost a way to rebalance things.
It was my period: “feminism without men”.
I did not choose to fall in love with a woman.
Neither the first nor the next.
On the other hand, I chose to appropriate the LGBT culture
and I discovered a world where, in fact, people are more likely to land
questions about what it means gender, sex, sexuality,
what does it mean to be a man, a woman,
it’s something that has fed me so much, so much interest.
I was interested first of all on the internet by reading,
and then in New York with my girlfriend of the time
who was American of Asian origin.
So here I discovered the concept of intersexionality.
In Paris, we were in the middle of the “marriage for all” period
so I integrated an asso, it was an important fight for me
and I’ve evolved like that, a few years.
And since we do not choose who we fall in love with,
I ended up attaching myself to a man.
It was not planned at all, and it went wrong,
I did not live it well.
But here we are going to stop because it’s getting long
side “identity quest”
and above all, I had more urgent to manage at that time
in the register of existential crises:
“I’m graduated, what do I do? “
So first I did some advertising.
In parallel I took evening classes in fashion, sewing,
and I realized
how much fashion was needed to change models,
we present models of feminine in the plural,
who have things to say, stories to tell,
that we finish with the models who are there to look pretty.
In size 34 and half all wet, retouched if necessary.
Finish all that.
That’s why I created my brand, Ypsylone,
that I started in women’s ready-to-wear
and paradoxically, it is also at that moment
where I entered the phase: “feminism with men”.
There are plenty that I do not want to put in the box: “all the same”.
There is my brother, there are friends, there are colleagues, mentors,
men who want to help, who helped me,
who can not get the keys if we do not give them
and who can not call themselves feminists
if they feel excluded.
So OK, everyone’s fighting.
But we must know how to popularize and gather if we want it to work.
I also learned the lessons of my period “feminism without men”
having explored my fluctuating identity,
by making peace with the male around me, in me too.
To be honest I’m still working on it,
but at least I understood that basically
we had the same problem.
The problem is not male domination.
It is the domination of a gendered, binary model that locks everyone,
men and women.
So put the men aside saying:
“Men have privileges,
they do not even realize it, they behave badly,
they do not understand anything. “
It feels good to moan, but it feeds the idea that feminism,
it’s our problem, not theirs.
When a guy asks me if I think feminism
is always useful, believe me it happens often in my life pro and perso,
I want to say to him: “Yes, it’s useful, feminism.
It’s useful in terms of pay gaps, beauty standards,
street harassment, there are still things to change. “
Feminism is useful for me, but it is also useful for you.
Because if women are always brought back to this stereotype of sweetness,
you, you will always be confined to this duty of virility.
If women are automatically the victims,
you will automatically be the oppressor, the culprit.
And if we continue to define all the time women in opposition to men,
Well, we can not cope.
And getting out of the opposition puts everyone in agreement.
In general, it goes through a common definition.
And here, I think we have a serious concern because we are in 2016 and visibly
the word “feminism” is still frightening to many men and women.
However, I am convinced that it is above all a huge misunderstanding.
You know Emma Watson, do not you?
OK cool. Good. For those who do not know her,
she played Hermione in Harry Potter.
She joined UN Women, she launched the movement “He for She”
and she gave an extraordinary speech on gender equality.
One would have thought that defining feminism by equality,
it would have made everyone agree.
It is still a rather nice and consensual value.
It turns out that in fact, no.
If you are a feminist,
you have already had this kind of reaction:
“Oh yeah, feminism is the people who are for
gender equality, right?
I’m not sure if I’m a feminist, you know,
I do not want to be all the same, it’s sad,
and then, what, we all have cocks, stopwatch
time spent in the kitchen, men are afraid to open the doors?
No, frankly, our differences are poetry, it’s genetic, all that.
Biologically, it’s natural,
we are different. “
OK, poetry, biology, very good.
I find it easy to invoke the authority argument “nature and biology”
when it suits us and put it aside if not,
but deep down, neither am I for equality between men and women.
I’m not for inequality, but for me, feminism,
it’s not a question of equality. It’s a question of freedom.
Besides, I should propose this definition to Emma Watson.
Does it tell you if we do it together?
He wrote a letter:
“Emma, I have to tell you really: thank you.
If you knew how happy it is to see a new feminism
embodied by someone approachable, cool and sexy. “
Yes, I said “cool and sexy” because the image,
it counts. And feminism, today, also has an image problem.
“Besides, Emma, it would be so cool to have a French version of you.
You understand, I’m a big fan. “
Let’s talk about serious things. We need to talk
of this definition of feminism by equality.
Equality always implies a comparison and a measurement.
We are equal to someone compared to a standard.
It starts from a good intention but it puts systematically
women on one side, men on the other.
I’m brought back to my wife’s box
and I am a woman, period.
Men, of course, are placed above,
and they have the impresson of having to let go of the ballast,
grant us places on the boards of directors,
be careful when they joke, do not be macho,
to make efforts on the children, the household chores,
and we need to be asked to be granted
the same things, the same treatments, the same status, the same standards.
Me, frankly, the HR policies of mixed
who look good in CSR reports, artificial equality, quotas,
all that does not speak to me at all.
Basically, I do not care to have as much as a man.
What interests me is to be free in the absolute.
I do not want to be an equal woman, I want to be a free woman.
I want to get out of stereotypes that lock everyone up,
women and men.
Of course, in some countries where equality, access to school, right to vote
is not insured, equality in law is the basis.
But when I talk about it here, in France, with friends,
Above all, I see a huge confusion between equality and egalitarianism.
“Besides, Emma, you’ll see …” ah, Emma is gone. Bah, shame.
Emma will find that it is a French problem that goes beyond feminism.
Still, the legal basis of equality, today it is there.
What we need is to change mentalities
to make us all freer. Women and men.
Point.
I still forgot a little PS to Emma:
“Emma, I like to debate a glass of wine
and if your female friend Justin Trudeau is available,
he is also cordially invited. “
Here.
Now it’s up to you.
It’s up to you to choose the definition that suits you.
Freedom, equality, breaking everything.
It does not matter.
A definition is not a fight in itself.
It’s a way of gathering and agreeing.
As you saw, I put a little bit of time
and several periods of feminism to understand that
fundamentally, feminism had to be a fight, a unisex movement,
and that’s why I propose a new definition
Feminism that comes first and foremost by freedom.
Because we do not have on one side those who are the standard of equality
and those who have to catch up with it.
We all have to gain from being freer.
I can not leave you
without making a last confession
and without addressing myself particularly to you, gentlemen.
I would like us to be very clear. Men, I still do not understand you.
Really, really not. I love you anyway
and I will defend your liberty as much as mine.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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