{"id":518674,"date":"2023-06-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=518674"},"modified":"2024-07-21T17:44:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T15:44:21","slug":"giving-a-voice-to-women-denigrated-by-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/giving-a-voice-to-women-denigrated-by-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving a voice to women denigrated by history\ufffc"},"content":{"rendered":"

History has always been written by men. On the eve of a new day of feminist mobilization in Switzerland, we take a look at one of the books that aims to give women back their rightful place.<\/strong>
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They're not what you think<\/em>The title chosen for this collective work, published this spring by Editions Rageot, sets the tone from the outset. Its ambition is to \u00abshake up clich\u00e9s (to) restore to great historical figures their true personality, the reality of their choices and the full scope of their deeds\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book's premise is simple: men have always written history. And this has inevitably influenced the way they have described women and their influence on their era. In an attempt to disentangle the true from the false, five journalists from the feminist magazine Causette<\/em> have immersed themselves in the latest research findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process is not new.\u00a0They're not what you think<\/em> is part of a wave of publications, podcasts and video capsules that have been giving women back their rightful place in history for several years now. One example is Titiou Lecoq's remarkable essay\u00a0The great forgotten ones, why history has erased women<\/em> or the comic book series Les Culott\u00e9es<\/em> by P\u00e9n\u00e9lope Bagieu. In Switzerland, too, a number of projects aim to shed light on personalities who, from Marie Heim V\u00f6gtlin to Anna Weckerin, have not necessarily made it into school textbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the hunt for clich\u00e9s<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But They're not what you think<\/em> goes a step further, focusing on \u00abthe falsified, the camouflaged, the counterfeited... those whose stories have been told in the wrong way\u00bb. In 240 pages, the five authors set out to deconstruct the clich\u00e9s and false beliefs that have surrounded these characters.

So Neanderthal women didn't just sweep the cave floor. Like her male counterparts, she hunted and defended the tribe. The Queen of Egypt was more than just a treacherous femme fatale. A scholar and polyglot (she spoke seven languages fluently), she was above all a shrewd politician and a formidable strategist. As for Charlotte Corday, the murderer of French revolutionary Marat, she was called the \u00abbitch of Calvados\u00bb after her crime. This overlooks her commitment to the revolution and the political aspect of her crime. In all, eight women, from prehistory to the present day, are brought to light by the authors of Causette<\/em>.

So why has history treated these personalities so badly, vilified, ridiculed and so often forgotten? For the authors, it was a question of removing all legitimacy from their actions. \u00abThus goes the logic of patriarchy, which cannot tolerate the fact that women have been able to think, act and intervene in the organization of society\u00bb, they note. Deploring the fact that certain clich\u00e9s about these women have sometimes carried over into the early 21st centuryth<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n