The philosopher and writer’s wife was invited to France Inter this Thursday to present her latest essay; Gentlemen, one more effort… She deciphers the basic inequality that women still experience when they become mothers, despite the feminist revolution of recent years.
A voice that counts. Elizabeth Badinter publishes a brand new work. Gentlemen, one more effort, published by Flammarion-Plon, in which he questions the links between the declining birthrate in France and the threat to women’s rights. “What prompted me to write something very quickly was that I felt a real threat to women’s liberties, to the control of their bodies,” warns the historian, invited to France Inter this Thursday April 25 : “If the birth rate continues to decline at the rate that we’ve seen from 2010 to today, I think we’re going to end up putting pressure on them.”
Elizabeth Badinter, questioned by Léa Salamé and Nicolas Demoran, then describes the “potential conflict between two legalities”; on the one hand, women’s rights. on the other hand, the responsibilities of the state. The 80-year-old philosopher and literate woman explains: “The first legality in my eyes is to protect the freedoms of women at all costs, to absolutely respect the wishes related to birth or non-birth. and at the same time recognize the responsibilities of the state to maintain a certain form of growth.’
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“When a child appears, everything changes for women.”
According to Elizabeth Badinter, women still face a big problem. despite their liberation and the feminist revolution of recent years with the advent of the #MeToo movement, mothers remain very constrained. “There remains an inequality between men and women, which we have not overcome, and this inequality is difficult to fight, because it concerns the closeness of the couple, the family,” assures the narrator. In particular, she points to the difficult daily life of women who have children while working full-time. “Once the baby arrives, everything changes for women, because they continue to bear the greatest burden, the greatest responsibility, the greatest guilt.”
“Since you cannot have a child with contraception and the possibility of abortion, it means that you choose to be a mother, to give birth to a child, and therefore you are mentally in the thought that you owe everything,” analyzes the philosopher. with his usual sharpness. And so, when you choose to have a child, the idea that you must be a perfect mother is born little by little. We owe him everything.” Noting positive education, the philosopher also condemns instructions that become too intense during pregnancy (“The embryo becomes the leader”), but also breastfeeding. “Women today find themselves in a contradiction. they must be perfect mothers, and at the same time, we are in a new phase of our morality, which means we are in an age where the priority is “personal development,” she argues.
In an interview, Elizabeth Badinter finally shares her concerns about women’s rights in the world. In particular, the difficulty of accessing abortion in the US or Italy. “In southern Italy, 80% of doctors refuse to perform abortions, it’s a road of the cross for Italian women.”
Source: Le Figaro
