Aurore Evain is a researcher, director, actress, author and playwright. It was she who, during her research, unearthed the word "author" which has since regained its nobility. "I fell into the pot female words forgotten and erased. I didn't know they existed, I stumbled upon them by chance. I did not even imagine that women could have written theater before Marguerite Duras!"explains the one who landed a literary baccalaureate with honors before specializing in theater. This is to say the fate of national matrimonial education …
The French language is misogynistic and discriminatory
"The word "author" has existed since ancient times, it is not a neologism. But, like other words including "heritage", the Académie Française has prevented it from entering the dictionary. In the same way, before, the masculine did not prevail. With its dictionaries and grammars, the Académie Française has established rules for masculinization under the pretext that "the masculine is the noblest gender". Today, we defend a grammar that aims to be neutral, whileshe created an elitist language. In the same way that the spelling has been made more complex on purposeAs these two professors explain very well in a TedX talk:
We learn that the complexity of French spelling was chosen and intended to be discriminatory and to give children a sense of effort. In 1694, in the preparatory notebooks for the very first dictionary of the Académie Française, it was written: "The spelling will serve to distinguish men of letters from ignorant and ordinary women". Yes, yes, you read that right!
"It is misogynistic that the masculine wins over the feminine, there is no doubt!", explains Yoann Lavabre, director of La Ferme de Bel Ebat, Théâtre de Guyancourt, which opens its stage to matrimony. "I am not always very proud to be a man when I see our history. The defense of the heritage, like feminism, it is a struggle for equal rights. And that's everyone's business. Feminism is not a movement for the eradication of men. It also concerns men that women have the same rights as them, it's a matter of shared dignity. " And to combine action with words, Aurore Evain and Yoann Lavabre created the site edifiernotrematrimoine.org, a cooperative production network that aims to federate theaters from French-speaking countries to commit to co-produce and broadcast shows of matrimonial heritage. For her part, Aurore Evain launched, with the HF movement, the first days of matrimony in 2015.
Cinema, the last bastion of patriarchy?
"In the theater as in the cinema, pioneers are pioneers. It's a bitter statement,"Yoann Lavabre continues. Indeed, we do not always know it, but in its early days, cinema was initiated by women. Like Alice Guy, who invented fiction films."She was secretary at Gaumont, which then made cameras. To promote the sale of cameras, she created La Fée aux Choux, which is the 1st fantasy film. She has also invented the peplum by staging the life of Christ. She was the first time filming African Americans, the first to create a production company cinematographic …"explains Yoann Lavabre.
But when this art professionalized and studios came out to create sets, the investments only benefited men. Women have been knowingly sidelined by men, male financiers only financing projects led by men. This is what the documentary by Tom Donahue explains Everything can change, What if women mattered in Hollywood … broadcast on Canal + and in which you can find Meryl Streep, Geena Davis or Reese Witherspoon. These actresses bear witness to the incredible sexism that still reigns in the 7th art today.
Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis shares how, while watching cartoons with her children, she realized that only 30% of the talking characters are female. She has since created an Institute on Gender in the Media. A 2-year survey that earned him the Google Global Impact Award. "Hollywood is our story machine. Stories make the people. The role of women is not represented, it is excluded from our stories, from our past and from our future", she explains in the documentary."Gold, what's good for women is good for everyone"she specifies.
Authors and composers despoiled by men
"Women have always been aware of the risk ofinvisibilization", explains Yoann Delavre."As early as the 12th century, the immense poet Marie de France wrote in her epilogue, "It may be that one day a cleric appropriates my work, but fool is who himself forgets himself". Like Camille Claudel and Rodin, many women have had their work plundered by their husbands."And Aurore Evain to specify:"We run a business of re-legitimization. The goal of the game is to go back as far as possible,""To show that Marie de France wrote fables that will inspire Jean de la Fontaine 500 years later. That "The Favorite "of Madame de Villedieu, interpreted by Molière before Louis XIV, inspired him to write "Le Misanthrope"."
And Yoann Delavre to add: "Hélène de Montgeroult, composer, was the first female piano teacher at the national conservatory. She wrote an extraordinary method of learning the piano that shaped the piano approach of composers of her century. Debussy learned the piano on his method. His study 107 inevitably brings to mind Chopin's "Revolutionary" Study written 30 years later. Some musicologists also defend that Bach's cello suites are said to have been written by his second wife, Marie Madelena."
"It is also the question of literary genius, which was built on selected works of trio Shakespeare, Molière, Corneille,"continues Aurore Evain,"while the greatest best sellers of the 17th century are written by women, including Madeleine de Scudéry who was an incredible novelist. They say that the great genius of the theater is Shakespeare … who is undoubtedly a woman. This thesis, which seems incredible, is nevertheless plausible. Mary Sidney, who has held the largest literary circle in England, would have erased itself."This shows the research of American Robin P. Williams, which Aurore Evain staged in a performance talk titled Mary Sidney, aka Shakespeare.
Matrimony has a future
"Americans are more than 10 years ahead, they know our heritage better than we do", explains Aurore Evain. They unearth and shed light on the cultural heritage that comes to us from women. Mocked just a few years ago, matrimonial days are now swarming all over France."I have just returned from a reading conference at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which has just created a cycle on forgotten authors. I did all my research at the BNF. I never imagined that this program could have seen the light of day. It is very moving to see how far we have come, to find myself in the heritage temple and make the words of women resonate, and to hear "author"and"matrimony". "
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