If France has several thousand museums, none is devoted to the history of feminist struggles and conquests. This lack, identified by magistrate Magali Lafourcade, in May 2022, in a column published by The world, should be filled in 2027 with the future Musée des féminismes, which should open its doors within the university library of Angers. “All the planets are aligned”rejoices the historian Christine Bard, who co-chairs the Afémuse, the association foreshadowing the establishment.
The project does not start from scratch. “It’s the meeting of a story and an opportunity”, smiles Nathalie Clot, director of libraries and archives at the University of Angers. For twenty years, this structure has accumulated the largest French concentration of documents relating to feminism. Yvette Roudy, appointed Minister (PS) of Women’s Rights by François Mitterrand, gave her personal archives, as did the National Federation of Family Planning. Since 2004, its website offers, through Museums, virtual exhibitions on the subject. The university also organizes, for five years, each year, the “month of gender”. “We are carried by the third wave of feminism invigorated and amplified by #metoo”argues Christine Bard.
“Plurality of voices and fights”
This project, the historian had time to mature it. In 2002, she designed a Women’s History Museum, the idea of which was approved by Bertrand Delanoë, but the former mayor (PS) of Paris would never see it through.
Twenty years later, the movement was relaunched by an open letter from Magali Lafourcade, who called for a museum defined as follows: “By paying homage to great women of letters, to artists, by reassessing their contribution and the grandeur of their work, by promoting the expression of women from ethnic and sexual minorities, such a place could reveal the extent and mechanisms of their marginalization by official authorities. »
The lawyer, specialist in human rights, recalls that only 9% of women have been recipients of the Goncourt prize, 18% awarded a César in the categories putting them in competition with men.
The opportunity arises precisely, while the library of the University of Angers obtains an envelope of 10 million euros for its renovation. Of the 7,000 square meters of the future library, approximately 10% will be devoted to the mediation and exhibition of archives on feminist conquests. The university context, which moreover saw the birth of the very first museums on this theme in Europe, lends itself particularly well to this. “It is an environment geared towards exchange, research and education”argumente Christine Bard.
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