I, You, He, We, You, They (feminine). Hello. On the 21st March 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France back then, promulgates the French men's Civil Code. And not of the French women's! Founding text written 15 years after the Revolution, article 213 mentions: "The husband owes protection to his wife. The wife owes obedience to her husband." Skipping to article 1124: "Minors, married women and mentally-retarded people have no legal rights." At least, things are clear. We have to say that in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau established solid basis. In his book "Emile, or On Education", tract dealing with "The Art of shaping Mens", he's writing: "All of the women education must be relative to the men." Until 1920, women could not unionize without the approval of their husbands. It's only in 1944 that they get the right of vote. On 1945 so that the notion of feminine salary is deleted. On 1954 so that the marital supervision which gives all powers to the husband on the work, money transfers, and goods management, disapears. On 1970 so that in texts, the paternal authority is replaced by the parental authority. On 1985 so that the management of estate is truly shared. Equality, what a long struggle! "Yes but all of this, was before." Really? Let's look the world of work. In 2013 in France, women were receiving a salary 25% inferior to men. "Yes but it's because they worked less!" Wrong. Only 1/3 of this difference is explained by the amount of work. The 2/3 remaining are only due to a salary difference. With the same skills, position and working hours, women earn 10% less than men. Oh my beloved discrimination. In France, in 2015, 20.5% of working men are executive. Women, them, are only 14.7%. However, what they do know is instability! 12.3% of women have a temporary contract, against 8.5% of men. Unqualified jobs? That's also a priority for women! 26.6% of them have such jobs, when only 14.5% men have. Nice! And who says "unqualified jobs", means "way less paid". All factors considered, the probability to be paid at the minimum wage is 1.7 times higher for women than it is for men. In 2015 in France, 1.2 million active women were underemployed, 9.7% of all of them. Where it only affects 3.7% of men workers. However, it is not about education! Still in 2015, 62.2% of working women are graduated. against 51.7% of men! By the way, what is happening on school benches? According to a 2017 study published in "Science" journal, from 6 years old, girls tend to consider themselves as less brilliant than boys. And it doesn't get better with time! Let's have a look to mathematics : According to PISA study from 2015, in OECD countries, among very good 15-years-old students in maths, there is a gap of 19 points between girls and boys. In favour of boys. Because they would be less endowed with numbers? Nope! According to the same study, girls are more anxious about mathematics because they are less confident with themselves about this subject. With the same confidence as anxiety, girls and boys have the same grades. Logically, a few years later in university, only 14% of women students choose scientific studies. To 39% of all students. When they are not sidelined, women are targeted. 45% of all ads only target the famous under-50 years old housewife. The same one that is hit by her partner. In 2014, one woman died every 2.7 days because of domestic violence. Every year, 216.000 of them are victims of violence. According to a 2015 study, 100% of women transports users have experienced at least one harassment or sexual assault in these public places. Alright, but inequality is in the genes! Really? In France, around 400.000 people have atypical chromosomes. XY women, XX men, some with even 3 or 4 X and Y chromosomes. Others, in between those two biological sides. Nature is more complex than our prejudices. And inequality is in our social constructions rather than in our genes. The good thing is that we can unconstruct them. Réjane Senac, 1st take! Réjane Senac, researcher at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) at the political research center of political sciences. In the 21th century, we can be delighted it, we are in the era of the inclusion. That means that unlike previous centuries, we easily can see that there is this idea that women have their place in the public space, and even in the political spaces. But the limit, according to me is that they have their place for the same reason that they haven't before, that is to say they were excluded. That is to say that, they are still included as women and not as the same, as similar as men. We justify the women inclusion, in particular in authority of power. Or more widely in the spheres where they had until now not their place or their legitimacy, With a whole principle of justification which is of the order of what I call an under condition equality of performance of the difference. In the meaning of the dramatization moreover, that is the women have to be here as women. That is to say there they are supposed to bring moderation, to be more in a listening purpose. Thus, we see well that this is not equality, this is complementarity. Back then, moms were confined in the private sphere, now they also have the right to speak up a bit in the public sphere, but only if they remain moms and if they don't question the authority of dad. That's where the division is. Horizontally, they don't have the same roles. We moreover can see that in the distribution of the jobs of delegations in city halls. There are as many male as female deputies, but women are more in the family matters, and men are managing town planning, finances, goverment, it is actually like that. And a vertical division, because it is not neutral: delegations, the missions with stronger stake in power are occupied, legally, by men. The common thing between sexism and racism, very clearly, is that we have justified discrimitative treatments, illegitimate differentiated treatments in the name of a natural inferiority. We are all (men and women), voluntarily or not, most of the time unconsciously and implicitly the heirs and the heiresses of this history. Our self-auto-limitiations, our not funny jokes, our ambivalent benevolence. They are the heiresses of all this. It is necessary to assume this inheritance. It is necessary to have a critical view of this inheritance. We must go out of the egalitarian myth. We must think that no, our inheritance, is a legacy of sexism, racism, hetero-normativity, And if equality is so hard today in practice, it is because we are heirs of all this. Yes, we all are for the equality between men and women, as we all are for peace in the world, against the famine, I have to forget some. So, here is the "zero" level of the political engagement, if now there is a consensus about wage equality and about the fight against violence towards women, and we can be happy of this, in another hand, about "what it means to be against violence towards women, and wages inequalities, and how to fix it?", so at that point we won't agree anymore at all. We must not only have a conception of individual path with the coaching trend, this idea that we all will make each other better, by "doing a bit of effort", I find that it's a depoliticization which may allow us individually to help us getting better, but is it the only goal? One of the measures which would be very effective, would be to have a public service for young children at a very young age, that's to say like the Scandinavian countries for example, there would be a place in daycare that would be ensured for every child. Public service for early childhood that would allow not to go out of employment women in the most precarious situations, or popular classes, because women who have better situations afford to keep their children alternatively if they do not have a nursery place. And of course, bring in these public services dedicated to early childhood, but also after for childhood, Not a reproduction of these assignments there but a deconstruction. It has been analyzed, in textbooks, either in math textbooks, where there is still dad working and mom going shopping, as in the history and literature textbooks. In the way we are going to talk to the children, the fact that the Nordic countries in particular, there is a current reflection, we begin to have it also in France, about neutral pronouns, on the fact that in the way we are talking to people, we also send back to them expectations. And the fact to use neutral pronouns, and thus not to make categories, for example, when we talk to children, something that allows, but not at the masculine form, to talk to everyone, and I really think this is an important track to have, and that it is not additional. The way we think the world and talk about it, it is our thoughts grids, opportunities, how we position ourselves in the same way as the blue and pink which did not have always [the same way], the pink was especially assigned to the monarchy, virility, and now it is rather the foolish color of girls. So we see that there is a historicity that allows take a step back from that. Similarly, the French Academy was reordered and because of the virility of our beautiful egalitarian country, while previously, there were "closeness concordance", That means we were tuning the adjective in connection with the last word, and not with this idea that we all (men and women) learned while we were young, and that brought us to heel, masculine form prevails over the feminine form, that is not a rule of grammar, but more broadly a social and political rule. But in my opinion, the answer is not to say, "front of liberty, equality, fraternity, we will put freedom, equality, sisterhood". The goal is not to make dominance reversals, the goal is to overcome this two-categorization system, So I think that's why I find the term sibling (= "adeplhité" in french), who says the link, and says in fact: "All those who are born of the same mother, regardless the gender, have a horizon that seems more constructive horizon, that does not put in this model of categories confinement. "Liberty, equality, sibling (= "adeplhité" in french)" And why not ? Between 1890 and 1908, the sociologist Madeleine Guilbert has recorded 56 strikes against women's work mainly in the federation of the book. Operate heavy presses, a profession of men! It seems you far? Today, 30.3% of women work part-time, against 8.3% of men. "Yes but, that's because they are women!" Here it is... 62% of civil servants are women! "Yes but it's hospital jobs, administrative jobs, teaching job! It's normal!" Well then... In this same public service, only 33% of coaching or management positions are held by women. "Oh yeah, but it's different here!" That's it... The difference. That's what interests us! The first step in the struggle for gender equality is probably to be aware of this difference. All these little things which we do not see and which nevertheless dig the imbalance permanently. We all (men and women) went through nursery school (= "maternelle" in french), isn't it? Ma-ter-nelle (word related to the mother) Why not pre-elementary? If you go in a museum, try to compare the number of paints featuring women with the number of paintings made by women. Some will say: "Yes, but complementary is enough!" From the perspective of the mediaeval lord, serf is entirely complementary! But from the perspective of the serf? The same claim that the equality could remove the differences between the sexes! Really ? As if equality between two humans with different skin color was removing their color? Lets be serious. Before, there was the fear of make virile women by letting them work. Today, there is that fear to feminize boys with an education which would be more neutral. And the nuance please! We can learn our differences without needing that the masculine take it over the feminine. An equality can be assumed through the diversity. And this is probably the strongest, and the most fair. - Subtitles: Colas -