The Risky Business of French Feminism by Sweatman Jennifer L.;Duncan Jennifer S.;

Author:Sweatman, Jennifer L.;Duncan, Jennifer S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Contesting the Collective, or Who are “the Women”?

While Antoinette Fouque conceived Editions des Femmes as an inclusive project targeting a general female audience, opponents of Psychanalyse et Politique saw in it an elitist, dogmatic “sect” masquerading as “all women.”[75] Such critics contested Editions des Femmes’ use of collective signatures, using the name of a group rather than individual women’s names on public statements, as well as its reference to “women.” Rather than an ideological disagreement about principles, these criticisms concerned the commercial context of publishing and the representation of the movement in print.

Most of Editions des Femmes’ public statements consciously omitted the individual representatives’ names in favor of identifying the collective or group of which they were a part, a practice that originated within the MLF. For example, tracts were often signed by a group of the MLF from a certain neighborhood or a particular city as well as by one representing a particular tendency within the larger umbrella movement of the MLF.[76] Psychanalyse et Politique used a similar strategy in signing their public statements by the group Psych et Po, PsychePo, or some other variation. This effort to minimize the individual in favor of celebrating the collective had a political significance for activists in the MLF as they sought to promote solidarity among women politically as well as to break out of what many MLF militants saw as the oppressive power of male individualism that had pervaded the leftist intellectual milieu of 1968. However, using collective signatures and speaking in the name of a collective group like the MLF also had inherent problems. For instance, most MLF militants increasingly abandoned the use of the term MLF from 1977 forward, preferring to use a more specific collective name instead. Such groups charged that Psych et Po, which increasingly used the old MLF signature, only deployed the name “MLF” to mask the fact that a small group of militants dominated public discourse. In particular, other feminists saw this practice as concealing the fact that Antoinette Fouque (allegedly) wrote all the texts, that it was her thought alone that was published.[77]

Fouque’s 1979 registration of the MLF as her association, along with the phrase “des femmes du MLF éditent . . .” as her house’s logo, seemed to lend credence to what other MLF activists had long suspected. Many scholars cite the registration of the MLF as Editions des Femmes’ trademark and logo as “provoking a rupture of the MLF’s unity.”[78] However, even before MLF militants resentful of Editions des Femmes’ visibility and Fouque’s registration began using the monikers “MLF déposé” and “MLF non-déposé,” the MLF was already profoundly divided. The failure of Le Torchon Brûle and proliferation of various media associated with different tendencies undermined the MLF’s common voice long before Fouque’s so-called coup.[79] Reactions to the registration, rather than the registration itself, indicate that other MLF militants distrusted Fouque long before this action, which some have argued could be reasonably seen as a protective gesture.[80] Little actual dialogue about her motives

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