International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Feminism: women fighting for their rights have always met resistance from male power …

Josette Trat — 2021-06-28T15:19:18Z

“We can see that a new wave of feminist struggles of a mass and international nature is sweeping the planet against gender-based and sexual violence and on issues of abortion rights in particular. We can only rejoice. Let us hope that this will make it possible to revitalize all feminist struggles within a unitary framework […].”

- Feminism / France, Women, Features

Gisèle Halimi: A courageous anti-colonialist and feminist lawyer

Josette Trat — 2020-08-17T09:58:38Z

It was in 2017, so very late in the day, that I truly discovered the extent of the struggles waged by Gisèle Halimi. Having started to campaign on the eve of May 1968, I have always attached a great deal of interest to the leaders of major social movements. I knew that Gisèle Halimi had defended FLN activists during the Algerian war, nothing more. I had followed with enthusiasm the progress of the Bobigny trials in 1972 where young Marie-Claire, accused of having an abortion, was acquitted and that in Aix in 1978 where three rapists of two young Belgian campers, feminists and lesbians, were sentenced by the Court of Assizes of the Bouches du Rhône. For me, Gisèle Halimi, this beautiful “bon chic, bon genre” woman was an excellent advocate for the cause of women, but she was not one of those remarkable feminist activists who inspired me. But after having immersed myself in the book she wrote with Simone de Beauvoir on the case of Djamila Boupacha and the account of the multiple obstacles that she had had to overcome for two years to ensure her defence, I grasped the determination of this woman to denounce torture alongside other intellectuals, in disregard of her safety and that of her family, and more generally the radical nature of her commitment to the fight against all injustices.

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / France, Obituary, Women, Algeria, Features, Anti-racism and Islamophobia

The forgotten history of the “class struggle feminist” current

Josette Trat — 2013-11-21T15:31:45Z

This paper was presented at the Historical Materialism Conference in London, 10 November 2013, in the panel on “A comparative analysis of socialist/class struggle feminism in France and Britain in the 1970s and 1980s”.

- Sexual politics / France, Women, Sexual politics, Features

On the question of sexual difference

Josette Trat — 2012-09-10T11:56:46Z

The philosophy of difference as it is theorized by Luce Irigaray today stems in part from the discussions within the French women's movement at the beginning of the 1970s. The discussion has re-emerged today with publication of Luce Irigaray's book Le temps de la différence in 1989, and her subsequent publications which, particularly the latest J'aime Ã toi (1992) she reformulates her project of a society based on the recognition of a gendered civil law. The discussion has become richer with other contributions, particularly from Italy.

- Sexual politics / Women, Sexual politics, Features