Encore feministes !

Sommaire

Manifesto


Why we are still FEMINIST :
twenty good reasons (or more)

1. BECAUSE we want a world of peace and justice, where human dignity is respected.
2. BECAUSE we request that men and women be equal in dignity, equal in rights, and that these rights be applied.
3. BECAUSE two thirds of the world's illiterate are women and girls.
4 BECAUSE 99% of cultivated land in the world belongs to men, whereas women produce 70% of the crops. Because women are 70% of the world's poor.
5. BECAUSE 84% of the parliamentarians in the world are men, when women make up more than half the electoral body.
6. BECAUSE in no country do women really benefit from rights equal to those of men. Because, in Afghanistan, women suffer under incredible barbarism and are without rights.
7. BECAUSE on average, in France, men earn 15% more than women for equal work, and 25% more for equivalent work.
8. BECAUSE men do only 20% of housework and childcare, and care for the sick and the aged.
9. BECAUSE at least one home out of 10 is a place of serious violence, whose victims are women and children 95% of the time .
10. BECAUSE sexuality between consenting adults can be the source of splendid reciprocal pleasure, but should not be used to wound or denigrate, in words or action.
11. BECAUSE all women have been insulted in public, called "bitch", "cunt", "slut" etc.
12. BECAUSE advertising too often represents women, and relationships between men and women, in a degrading manner.(see La Meute
)
13. BECAUSE, every year in the world, two million little girls are excised thus added to the 100 millions of sex-mutilated women.
14. BECAUSE we wish to call upon everyone to resist the violence of a sexist system that exalts brutal virility and despises those who are "different", including women, children, homosexuals, the poor, the handicapped, etc.
15. BECAUSE in some countries, such as Canada and Northern Europe, political will and feminist work have already helped change mentalities.
16. BECAUSE we feel solidarity with women and girls who are mistreated, humiliated, underpaid, insulted, beaten and raped everywhere, every day.
17. BECAUSE "feminism has never killed anyone, whereas machismo kills every day" (Benoite Groult).
18. BECAUSE we are demanding an antisexist law like the antiracist French law of 1972, so that the sexist misdemeanors and crimes can be identified as such and punished.
19. BECAUSE we aspire to the republican ideals of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; because we could replace fraternity by "adelphity" for a better representation of a harmonious solidarity between all humans, women and men.
20. BECAUSE 'today's utopia is tomorrow's reality" (Victor Hugo).
21. BECAUSE... (add your own reason, if you wish):

THIS IS WHY WE ARE STILL FEMINIST and will continue to be so as long as necessary!

Florence Montreynaud
8 March 2001
International Women's Day

Translation : Claire Bangasser and Regan Kramer

To sign the Manifesto