Comedian Caroline Vigneaux explains why she is an "optimist feminist"

INTERVIEW

In his only on stage 

, comedian and former lawyer Caroline Vigneaux pleads for the cause of women.

A show that she resumes on stage this Tuesday evening for the first time since confinement, in a revised and corrected version.

The guest artist on the team of the show 

on Europe 1 has always considered herself a feminist.

She explains to Anne Roumanoff's microphone how this identity was born and why she considers herself today as an "optimist feminist".

>> Find all of Anne Roumanoff's shows in replay and podcast here

A lawyer's perspective on feminist progress

The comedian advocates "a feminism of reconciliation" between men and women.

A positive approach, like Caroline Vigneaux's vision of advancing gender equality.

Her vision is also very marked by her past as a lawyer, firstly based on legislative developments.

"Today, there are no more misogynistic laws in France," she observes.

“The last one that fell two years ago, two and a half years ago. It kept us out of the submarines because, supposedly, 'You realize that if you ever put a woman in a sub sailor, well the guys are going to have to catch him. 'Apparently now that's it, the men know how to hold back, so we can put women in a submarine. I think there is only the Foreign Legion left. which we do not yet have access to. But I'm not sure this is a fight that should really be waged right away for women. "

For Caroline Vigneaux, the time is high for women's rights.

"I am very optimistic! I am an optimist feminist", explains the comedian.

"My grandmother did not have the right to vote. Do you realize where we are in two generations? It is going in the right direction in all the countries, even the countries which have the most difficulty."

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  Caroline Vigneaux: "I realized that we had only one life and that we had to take advantage of it"

The long-awaited emergence of the sorority

The former lawyer and still admirer of Gisèle Halimi also observes that the company takes a new look at feminism.

"Before, when I talked about it, we said 'Oh shhh stop Caroline, she's the feminist of the group, she's relent'", she remembers, smiling.

'Now I'm in the air.

They tell me 'Oh obviously you are a feminist now!', But I've been a feminist for 45 years.

I never endured this injustice which wanted to be forbidden to me to do something because I am a girl.

I don't mind being told that I don't have the right because I don't have the diploma, not the energy, not the size.

But not because I'm a girl.

My sex cannot be a handicap. "

Because the hope of the "optimist feminist" feeds on more global developments.

"Today, thanks to #MeToo, women are talking, and we are talking about it," says Caroline Vigneaux.

"It's also progressing because women stop letting themselves go and after a while, they say stop. Maybe we are seeing the birth of sorority, this mutual aid between girls. I think it's beautiful. It exists more and more, it's very nice. "

>> LISTEN ALSO - 

EXCERPT - Ex-lawyer Caroline Vigneaux recounts the only day she refused to defend a client

A fight born from his personal experience

If Caroline Vigneaux has feminism rooted in her, it is because she very quickly understood the inequalities imposed on girls.

"When, as a child, I was in a smocked dress and I was told 'No Caroline, stay there, take some pencils', while my cousins ​​were allowed to climb trees, I said to myself' But why I am a girl? 'she recalls.

A sexism that also marked her in her first career.

"In my old job as a lawyer, you had to manage to get a promotion without going through the sofa, to be nice but not too much, to have an outfit that should be feminine but not flirty. I also met a lot of women who had been raped, assaulted… What shocked me the most was the clients who did not understand why they were going to the Assizes and who said 'Wait, I didn't kill anyone, I just raped her.' realized that a lot of men didn't know that raping a woman is a crime. "

"When you're a guy, you don't know what it is"

But Caroline Vigneaux also explains that she understands that some men may have difficulty understanding feminist struggles.

"I have an idea of ​​what racism is, I suspect that it is not good, I am not racist, but I do not live it. I do not live racism on a daily basis as it can be. live some of my friends, ”she compares.

"When you're a guy, it's the same: you don't know what it's like to be whistled in the street every day, to turn around when you meet a guy to check that he hasn't changed of the way, of knowing how to respond to a guy who pisses you off and do it gently so that he doesn't insult you, but not too kindly so that he stops, etc. This is all our daily life. "

A daily newspaper that inspired the comedian for his show entitled 

in reference to the original fault of Adam and Eve.

This religious story has, according to Caroline Vigneaux, to justify many of the inequalities imposed on women.