Martine Storti, former MLF, in defense of "universal feminism"

Cathy Bernheim (left) and Martine Storti (right) in 2010, for the 40 years of the MLF, the Women's Liberation Movement, an important feminist movement of the 1970s. -

• With

  For a Universal Feminism,

  the former figure of the Women's Liberation Movement Martine Storti tries to get out of the “competing dogmatisms” that in her eyes are decolonial feminism, anti-capitalist feminism and identity feminism.

• The former professor of philosophy also criticizes the use of the concept of "intersectionality" and judges that it has transferred "from concept to slogan".

• Instead, she proposes a feminism of the “in-common” of women, “which is not the negation of differences”.

  
  

It is a tool for critical analysis of today's feminism, which attempts to draw a third path, that of complexity, an element in the process of disappearing in the age of social networks.

In

(Seuil), Martine Storti, former figure of the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF), tries to refocus feminism on its fundamentals: women's rights.

Believing that feminism is divided and diluted by wanting to marry too much with other struggles, the former journalist at

, daughter of an Italian immigrant worker, former professor of philosophy, draws the path of feminism for all, which takes into account the differences without forgetting the "in-common".

A feminism that wants to avoid oversimplification, “mush”, she says, citing the philosopher Jacques Rancière.

Simplification that she criticizes three major currents that are currently very popular: decolonial feminism, anti-captitalist feminism and "nationalo-feminism".

You criticize different feminisms, which you blame for simplicity, inaccuracies, even lies.

Let's start with “decolonial feminism”.

What are you having trouble with?

Decolonial feminism, as it is presented in particular in the book by Françoise Vergès or the writings of Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, articulates with feminism the decolonial ideology according to which Western modernity which begins in 1492 with the discovery of the America is intrinsically linked to slavery and colonialism.

Feminism being considered a component of this modernity would therefore also be marred by slavery and colonialism. 

There are obviously still present effects of what colonization was.

But explaining that feminism is necessarily linked to slavery, for example, requires some inadmissible historical sleight of hand, for example to accuse Olympe de Gouges of rooting women's rights in slavery, when she was one of the pioneers of its denunciation, its texts attest to it.

You also criticize the notion of "white feminism" ...

I say that it is a globalizing and disqualifying ideological construction.

What exactly is white feminism?

White feminism?

Do all white women think the same?

Of course not.

When I ask the question, I am told that it is not linked to the color of the skin but to an ideological position.

But then, which one?

Several other adjectives are used: “bourgeois”, “mainstream”, “civilizational”, “racist”, presented as synonyms for “white”.

It is a process of homogenization which suggests that there are only two feminist currents: decolonial feminism on the one hand, white feminism on the other, as if any criticism or reserve to With regard to the first one necessarily put you in the camp of racists, civilizations, supporters of colonialism.

I reject the globalization carried out under the name "white feminism" as much as that which is played out in the term neo-feminism ", because the more one homogenizes the more one essentializes, the more one erases the singularities.

The more we essentialize, the more we do what the enemies of women have done?

Absolutely, that's why I say that the term "neo-feminism" is so much to criticize because it too denies the differences, the nuances.

It is a term that disqualifies current feminists as if they all thought the same thing, we find it on the side of Pierre-André Taguieff, Alain Finkielkraut, Elisabeth Levy, Eric Zemmour,

,

, to take just a few examples. ….

In addition, this term allows political currents which have always been historically against the rights of women, against the liberalization of abortion in the 1970s, against marriage for all today to wave the flag of "universalist feminism" by instrumentalizing.

You also attack the notion of intersectionality.

Yet intersectionality is useful in showing the specific forms of discrimination suffered by black women, disabled Arab men, fat people of color, etc.

Intersectionality as an analytical tool to decipher and make visible several forms of oppression and discrimination that add up, intersect and weigh on people suits me very well.

I totally agree with the fact that there are people who experience many forms of oppression.

And that in our country it is better to be rich, white and heterosexual, than black, poor and lesbian!

So intersectionality as a tool of analysis and action yes, but it is also, unfortunately, a tool of disqualifying stigmatization, hence my formula "from concept to slogan".

Having the slightest reservation with regard to intersectionality is risky to be accused of racism, to be on the side of whites, of the dominant.

Secondly, the intersectionality which normally should mean the crossing too often ends up unfortunately in a hierarchy of struggles, considering the anti-racist struggle as a priority over the struggle for the emancipation of women.

Hence the injunctions not to denounce sexism or sexual violence if they emanate from one's “community”.

Betrayal of “race” or “community” has replaced class betrayal.

There is a sort of confinement in his community and in a fixed identity.

Let's move on to your second target, anti-capitalist feminism, with the book in particular

Feminism for the 99%

.

For you, this book tends to make capitalism a synonym of patriarchy, with consequences that you criticize.

What's the risk ?

In Antiquity Athens and Rome were not capitalists and male domination was present there!

Tearing down capitalism is not enough to tear down patriarchy.

There is a link between economic oppression and male oppression, but the link is not causal.

Yes, women in the capitalist system, in particular neoliberal, financialized, are an adjustment variable in the economy.

They are in the majority in the most precarious and poorly paid jobs, are victims of discrimination in the workplace, etc.

Globally, a large part of the female workforce is exploited.

But capitalism does not capture all forms of control of the female body or the multiple aspects of male domination.

Women can be victims of discrimination and social oppression, but they are also victims of societal oppression: the issue of sexual violence, abortion, unwanted pregnancies, all of this is part of their daily life. and is not just a matter of capitalism.

Your last arrows are for right-wing feminism, which you call “nationalo-feminism”.

You point to the risk of “reducing women's equality and freedom to national identity”.

Affirming that gender equality is a component of French identity leads to a dead end.

First, it is historically false, emancipation and the conquest of equality are the product of struggles, generation after generation, not of a national identity.

It is not because France had literary salons in the 18th century run by women that they were emancipated and all others with them!

Note also that the French Republic gave women the right to vote very late, unlike other countries.

The second reason is that reducing political concepts such as equality and freedom to French identity allows one to say: this identity is not mine.

We end up with a fight for identities and for women, it's a disaster.

What are the principles of "universal feminism" that you advocate?

I try in this book to get out of competing dogmatisms, and to take charge of the complexity.

Universal feminism is not a path already there, a path already marked out.

The universal that I am proposing does not impose a model of emancipation, it consists in affirming that there is a "in-common" of women, which is not the negation of differences.

It is rather a going beyond in the Hegelian sense of the term, going beyond while conserving.

Differences are a component of this universal.

That's why I say: universal feminism, you just have to open your eyes to see it.

He is in the battles waged by each other in different countries.

And I take identity feminism as an example of a concrete universal in action.

Women in India, Africa, France, everywhere with their own characteristics, their specificities, are fighting against sexual and gender-based violence.

I multiply the examples in my book.

Your universal feminism is still, at times, akin to a globalized and uniform feminism.

You slay those who support the right of women to wear the veil.

However, women in France "forced" to wear the veil are a tiny minority, and the local struggle here is to have the right to wear it.

But you say it would be a lack of solidarity with those on the other side of the planet.

It is not correct to say that I “slay those who support the right of women to wear the veil”.

I do not question this right, any more than I am in favor of banning the veil in public spaces or at university as some advocate.

Moreover, I do not dispute that a certain number of women in France wear a veil freely.

Do they wear it as a religious, identity, political sign?

I do not know and it must probably vary with the people.

But as much as I recognize their right to wear a veil, I also have to recognize the right to say what I think about it.

Hiding your hair so as not to excite men, requiring women to show modesty does not seem to me, I dare to admit, a sign of emancipation and I have a little trouble qualifying the wearing of the veil as feminist.

There are veiled little girls in France, and they don't choose it.

Would they also excite men?

On the other hand, I do think that we do not only engage ourselves.

Currently millions of women have no choice, some are killed or imprisoned because they do not wear the veil, I think that a gesture of solidarity would be not to wear it.

But this is a personal point of view and I am not forcing anyone to do anything.

Some say that the issue of women in Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia should not be imported into France… But we cannot be isolated from the world, it is there.

The world is in the Kabul and Vienna attacks, in the assassination of Samuel Paty.

The whole world is there, in front of your window.

And history too!

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