Bas les pattes [S2E7] - Masculinistes, féministes : la bataille des réseaux sociaux • RFI

You're listening to Balepad, season 2, episode 7. Masculinist, feminist, the battle of social networks. A RFI podcast. What would have been the feminist struggle nowadays without the Internet? Or even half-turn this movement was born on social networks. It is thanks to the possibilities offered by the Internet that he had the success and the echo that we know him. It is thanks to this tool that thousands of women who hesitated until then, certainly out of fear, found the strength to speak up to denounce their attackers. It is also through social networks that feminine solidarity is the most manifested. These platforms have become the space par excellence to express their commitment, to affirm their ideas for the feminist cause. Moreover, this Balepad podcast would not exist had it not been for the amplification given to feminism on social networks. But after this freedom of speech found by women thanks to digital tools, we had to face a setback. I am one of the people who thought that the feminist revolution, started with the popularization of MeToo in 2017, was finally going to radically change things and open the way to a real awareness of men on their privileges built on the oppression of women. This was not the case. A resistance has been built and structured, also thanks to the tools of the Internet. Let's not forget that if you want to fight your opponent, you have to use the same weapons as him. Men who made feminism the enemy to be defeated have begun to be heard thanks to their perfect mastery of social networks. They are called masculinists. I admit that I had not measured the extent of their determination until I watched the documentary The director, Cécile Delarue, shows how men have orchestrated an online hate campaign against actress Amber Heard for discrediting her during the defamation trial that opposed her to her ex-husband Johnny Depp in 2022 after mutual accusations of marital violence. This documentary really opened my eyes to the danger that male supremacy represents, a masculinist who does not hesitate to attack women on social networks and to provoke confrontations without opposing solid arguments to defend his points of view. The same is true of African netizens who have made digital platforms a giant agora of debate. It is therefore obvious that certain subjects that have the same quota as feminism are very quickly buzzing. Journalist, sociologist and author of the book Mal Noir, Elgaz offers a relevant analysis of this question. It is not a phenomenon that is only found in Africa. For a long time, the West has had a forced march, not forced, towards progressivism. People took it upon themselves. They were only waiting for, in a certain way, the re-emergence of strong identity and reactionary discourses to let their feelings reappear through identity, to counter what they consider to be deprivations or, in any case, a form of dispossession of virility, of family, of authority, which are the values of quite classical rights. And that's why what you say is very fair on social networks. Now, masculinists no longer hide, they come out of the woods, they now have particularly offensive discourses, they come to attack feminists, and so on. And why did we get to the point today that black men, when I say black men, I'm talking more about masculinists today, who are informed in opposition to feminism, think that feminism is there to emasculate, to return to the black man his virility. Yes, but we see it here, by the way. Many white men say that feminists are ... There is a book, Confessions of a 50-year-old heterosexual, I don't know, outdated, by Frédéric Beigbeder, and so on. And then we see that there is a bad resistance. There is a whole literature in France, a decadent literature, I will call it like that, people who say, yes, in any case, the Western man is being attacked, so his virility is being drowned, we have to resist. And these discourses also find echoes in Africa, where people say, yes, we are the depositors of the virile force in the world, to a certain extent, and we must keep it, be proud of it, and precisely repel these feminist logics, with very malicious logics, because what we can say about feminists, sometimes, is in the order of the vulgar speech, of the very, very insulting speech, and that's what happens. There is a form of masculinist internationalism that takes place, because the modes of expression of the feminist discourse, I mean, come to counteract their privileges, and precisely, every time we counteract someone's privileges, they spread in a form of outrage, in a form of overreaction, and I, who say, I don't say it to get rid of myself, I give myself the freedom to explore feminist discourses, to take what I consider to be fair, but I don't give feminists a white breast, I discuss with feminists, but I am not in a logic of disqualification, and everything they claim, for once, on the essential, I agree with them, I mean, when we ask for wage equality, when we ask for the end of mutilation, when we ask for the end of sexual violence, when we ask, and so on, a lot of essential subjects, but these are important subjects, capital, to make society together, but, in general, we shouldn't expect much from social networks, we don't sign any kind of benevolence charter, of elegance, these are popular parliaments where people sometimes want to unwind, there can be absolutely beautiful things, but also absolutely outrageous things, that's why the most important debates in society will not be sold on social networks, but through intrafamilial logics, where we manage, precisely, to arouse these individual emancipations, not in vertical logics, where we come to tell people what they have to do, but by arousing the discussion, by seeing how people can, themselves, seize their destiny, their freedom of conscience, to do something about it, and even assume something. When they decide not to agree with us, they have the right to do so, because it is a form of elementary intellectual secularism, to accept that we can live in a society where people do not agree. Digital platforms have also become the place for the settlement of accounts of couples of artists from the continent. The fact that these celebrities expose their stories allows citizens, especially men, to see that no one is safe from marital violence. I still remember the video of the Cameroonian rapper Tenor and his fiancée at the time, the Ivorian humorist Eunice Zunon. Their couple problems broke out on the big day in 2022, when a video of violent disputes appeared on social networks. The images clearly showed Eunice Zunon taking over Tenor, to the point of immobilizing him. The Ivorian humorist and influencer, Jus Crepangondo, remembers this episode and the reaction it had caused, especially among men who started laughing. I made a post that worked well. I didn't want to make a video, I made a test. It was shared thousands of times, in which I gave my opinion in seven points. But basically, I was saying that you have to learn to get out of people's lives with class. When someone doesn't want you, it will give a counterproductive result. It's totally humiliating, what happened. And I consider that there are signals that show that they don't want you anymore. But the side where I saw, in the video we had, in the extract, it's her who is violating him. And I don't want to spit in the soup, but for the testimony I have of Eunice, in any case, for the fight, it's never the last one. She is always ready to react, especially not in a violent way. So I was telling her, a woman is violating a man, and the reaction of the public opinion was, oh, it's a cadena, her eyes are out. I said, no, it's not good. If a man had done a tenth of that, the canvas would have caught fire. Maybe she would have ended up in jail. For a woman, stop sexualizing violence. Stop generating violence. That's the theme I was looking for. When it's on a man, it's less serious, and when it's on a woman, it's more serious. No. There are men who are beaten, who can't even speak. There are people who are violated. And often in violence, there are violence that we ignore. Verbal violence, psychological violence. The number of men who suffer from verbal violence, it's impressive. Like women, they don't come in physical violence. They go into verbal violence, they say mean things to you, they insult you, they push you to the limit. And often it's the finitude of your act that is highlighted. And yet there was a whole process before we got to that. I know a lot of men who weren't violent at first, who tell me, they don't know when the first blow was. I don't justify the act they do, but if we say that there are women who are manipulative on the side, they push you to the limit, and they recover your reaction to make it a public problem. So I didn't agree with the fact that people laugh, because very often, unfortunately, instead of men making common ground, like women would do if they were in a difficult situation, men would rather form a group of jokers. We laugh, we make fun of it, it's not a man. But when we do that, it doesn't push men to want to reveal what they go through or what they feel. There, Tenor was in a bad position because he was violent, and there are a lot of men who are violent. My father was still alive, and I saw cases where there were people who went to the police station who were sick, I didn't beat my wife, but once they told him, the whole police station was laughing, we made fun of him. Do you think that tomorrow he will leave again to file a complaint? Because when the woman is beaten, the complaint is immediately acquired. You see, I had a neighbor at the time where there was the COVID thing, who didn't beat his wife, but he had suffocating screams. We all knew, we could feel it, but he couldn't, he was suffocating. Until the morning, we saw him, he had a suffocating body, but he couldn't speak. Until one day, he was tired, he took his things and left. But we have to be able to liberalize the word so that men, what they also experience as a problem in the couple, are also described so that solutions are taken. This case has just led Crepin Gondo to push this blow against men, those who belittle other men do not fall within the norms of patriarchy. He encouraged them to take their responsibilities, to defend themselves, just as feminists do for women. Hello ladies and gentlemen, my name is Just Crepin Gondo and I want to inform you through this video, in a solemn and official way, that I launch the platform, if not a movement, to defend the rights of men. Because I think that at some point, we have to be responsible enough to stand up and defend the causes that concern us. I find it really cowardly, and it is a real leap forward, to accuse feminists of not leading our battles. I think the prerogatives are quite clear, they fight for their cause and for the child's cause, they have not come to add to it. We are big enough, we have teeth, and we are responsible enough to speak. The problem is that this society has put men in such a position in which they do not have to endure this suffering, which means that we are in a system in which men suffer a lot and internalize a lot of suffering. That's why one morning, the blow left quickly, and someone who was not violent in the past becomes violent, because he is subjected to forms of violence, and he does not speak, he prefers to break everything. I've heard people say, yes, you know, a man does not speak much, a man does not cry, a man is strong. Even if your wife carries you, but she believes in you, you have to leave her, you must not react. No, at some point, we have to react. It is this silence that is dangerous, in fact. And the feminists have really pushed us to this point, because when there are subjects that affect them, what do they do? They get together and defend the cause, until there is a solution. But when this happens, what do we do? First, we start to make fun of the victim, to ridicule this victim. We will educate the subject and then bring it back to debates that are plural. And yet the real cause is there. You can't imagine the number of men who suffer in silence and who refuse to share, for fear of being ridiculed. We are not in solidarity. In addition, we accuse feminists of not leading our battles. Let's be responsible men. So I call on all the people who want to help us, from close or from far, especially women, especially feminists, because they really have a big advance on us. Come and help us so that we can put this platform on the road, so that men at least have the right to speak and that what they feel inside of them is manifested. I consider that women are more violent than men. And I mean verbal, psychological, financial and high. God knowing the violence of women, he wanted physical violence to be given to men. It's not reductive for women. I'm just saying that on a biological level, men are much stronger physically than women. Because if they had this physical strength, we wouldn't be able to control them. But since this announcement, the association has still not seen the light of day and Juste Crepin Gondo has decided to reorient this initiative. He explains to us why. I thought at the end that we need to be able to speak. I made the announcement on social media. I received messages of support from women, from men who were present. Then I said to myself, if we make a platform that defends the rights of men, men will still be ashamed. It's easy to stigmatize them. And there I saw a group of feminists saying yes, it's you who want to do it, it's you. Because women take criticism very badly. It will be, let's say, a social channel in which we will give the floor to men on the subjects that concern them and then they will be able to speak. The first step is that we can know what's going on in the minds of men and that we can share the same challenges that men have. But if we come with the rights of men, it's not going to make good press. If there is a subject that is related to men, we can take the floor to speak. We can give our opinion. So it won't be about defending the rights of men. No, it will be a matter of being balanced. When it concerns men, to tell the truth, we will tell the truth. When we see that women also have a bit of a problem, we will tell the truth. Is it also to make a common front against feminist associations or are there other reasons? No, there are other reasons. The most important thing is not even to oppose women because we are not opposed. Often there are feminists who are on the right in their emancipation. That's the problem. They think they are feminists to fight against men. Yet the feminist just wants to say we want to have the same rights, we fight for our rights. But when we switch to Harris and then it becomes bellicose, it's not interesting. We will support the issues and problems that men go through to speak. It won't be against women because we are not opposed. Feminists, there are people who have understood the fight who know they have to fight against patriarchy and not against men because patriarchy is their way of thinking. Against people who are misogynistic, against people who do not respect rights, I agree. Within the platform, we will not fight against women, we will rather fight so that we can allow men to have their say and that their physical, psychological, mental problems are taken into account. If feminism has taught us one thing, it is sorority. This solidarity between women to defend themselves and fight against inequalities because they share a life because of their condition as women. But concerning men, the case of the artist Camerounet Tenor shows us that men are very rarely supportive of other men, especially when it comes to denouncing cases of violence against them. In the next episode, it will be a question of the role of the media in the debate on feminism and masculinity of African men. Do not hesitate to share this podcast on your social networks. Talk about it around you, especially to the men around you because the question of masculinity is just as important as feminism. Did you like this episode? I invite you to share it on social networks and to talk about it around you. Do not hesitate to subscribe to the podcast and to give it 5 stars on the listening platform of your choice. See you soon!