“If I had to approach a girl in the street, now I would be apprehensive, because I know that she may have been insulted before, illustrious Yanis, a high school student at Jean-Jacques-Rousseau in Sarcelles. I wait for a quiet place and I smile. My technique is to ask her her name and wait for her and you ? ».
Every Tuesday at noon, during the lunch break, thirty-five volunteer students, from the second to the final year, meet to talk about sexism and equality between girls and boys. This “brigade” was only created in December and the first beneficial effects are already being felt.
“At the CDI, boys have borrowed feminist and engaged books like King Kong theory by Virginie Despentes”, slips Aurélia Dufils, professor librarian, equality referent in high school. She is at the origin of this unprecedented initiative, with Maud Carlier-Sirat, professor of literature.
Debate around abortion
“This brigade responds to a real need. The students were just waiting for that, rejoices Maud Carlier-Sirat. There is great enthusiasm on their part on all of these issues. And more and more professors are asking since the scandal Me too. Rather than that coming from the teachers, we wanted to start from the ideas of the pupils ”.
On this day, the young people talk about the restitution of their work in front of 300 students from their high school on the occasion of International Women’s Day. The conversation turns to the subject of abortion. “My mentality has changed, confesses Yanis, just 18 years old. I thought before that a woman who had an abortion made the choice to abandon her child, without there being any consequences. “
The dialogue opens with Lexie, a girl in her final year class, who shows her the opposite. Yanis is already applying what he learns in his daily life. “In the tram in Saint-Denis, I saw a girl who asked me to change places because she was uncomfortable because of a traveler. I offered to take her home. By talking with girls, we realize that it happens often, ”he laments.
Only three boys present
Only regret: a majority of young girls make up the brigade, for only three boys. “The high school is 67% female, because of the courses provided”, underline the teachers. Should there be more boys? “Yes!” Exclaim the participants in unison. We would have more varied opinions, a male point of view, but they are perhaps less motivated because less affected. “
“I knew that there were inequalities in wages,” Yanis continues, who followed a friend to the brigade and then led another. In my life, I’m not going to feel discriminated against but it’s not that I don’t live it that I can’t fight it. These inequalities, women suffer them, those who create them should go to the other side. “
In this versatile high school, on the outskirts of which a 15-year-old serial rapist prowled in 2018, “there are the same issues as elsewhere: conflicts between girls, between boys, between girls and boys, harassment and violence. But as they are adolescents, they are confronted with rumors and groups of young people and they have fewer resource people outside, ”says Maud Carlier-Sirat. “It’s more intense because they are high school students, supports Aurélia Dufils. At the institutional level, we are increasingly encouraged to implement actions on equality ”.
A big sartorial pressure
The seconds evoke above all a great sartorial pressure. “The guys here are being tough, they want to give themselves an image,” Nisrine analyzes. On social media like TikTok, boys posing topless get pleasant style messages You’re too beaufiful but if a girl wears a crop top, it’s negative comments straight away. “
Her classmate Sabrine has set up a project of female silhouettes that the other students will have to “dress” to show the limits of “decent attire”. “We also produced a timeline with shocking dates. Until 2012, legally, women did not have the right to wear pants ”, indignant Eiline, another student of second.
If the concerns evolve according to the levels, “violence concerns them all”, points out Maud Carlier-Sirat. “In class, in the corridors, we are faced with that. We hear them say that women should take care of the children and the cooking. Girls come to us for violence inside or outside the establishment, harassment or more than that ”.
Fewer interventions by girls in progress
According to Alicia, in final year, “the girls feel observed, they receive comments on their physique, but they do not necessarily realize it. They take it as a joke and do not feel legitimate to say no ”.
With her group, she carried out a survey on the distribution of speaking time for girls / boys in the classroom. “Most of the time, girls have a lower volume of voices. They intervene less often and generally when they raise their hand or are questioned. Conversely, boys listen less, monopolize speech more and speak louder. Male teachers tend to look less for discreet girls even if it’s unconscious ”.
“It’s not just in the suburbs”
For his part, Lyndel, in his final year, has developed a board game to put himself in the place of the other genre. She also manages the Instagram account, @brigade_jjr. Transidentity, non-binarity: she juggles with ease between these complicated words. “It is important to know the basics, you have to cultivate yourself on what you do not know,” said the teenager, raised by her mother.
“It wouldn’t necessarily be well for a boy to come to high school wearing makeup or belong to the LGBT community. It is not accepted in this high school, or in high schools in the Paris suburbs. Patriarchal society has established standards of virility, ”Lexie bounces. “It’s not just in the suburbs,” considers Yanis. Here, we have this respect between us because we all grew up together, it creates emotional ties ”.
–
