Three New Products to Rediscover Women’s Place in History

A comic

The result of an impressive work of synthesis – more than seven versions of the scenario were produced before arriving at the one that readers will have in their hands – this History of France in women’s terms (Casterman) is a fantastic gem.

Carried by Sandrine Mirza, children’s author (and trained historian) to whom we owe in particular My first mythology in comics (Casterman jeunesse, 2021) and the designer Blanche Sabbah, whose super Myths and girls (Dargaud, 2022), this comic strip – the first of its kind! – gives women back the place they deserve in the history of France.

“From prehistory, which we know inaugurates patriarchal domination, to the present day when the #Metoo movement has just freed the voices of victims of male violence, this comic strip unfolds a long, endearing, moving, surprising story of the people female ” summarizes the historian Yannick Ripa in the preface to the work. Not only does the album endeavor to highlight those who have passed into posterity (although their names are also regularly overlooked…) – Eleanor of Aquitaine, Catherine de Medici, Christine de Pizan, Madame de La Fayette , Emilie du Chatelet, Louise Michel, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir… – but it also retraces the daily lives of generations of anonymous people. Immersing us in the condition and ordinary life of women in recent centuries.

Designed for a young readership, from 11 years old, this comic book is also perfectly suited to adults who will enjoy it. Aesthetics, humor, panache, pedagogy…: it’s all there! So much so that it is already part of our list of books to give for Christmas.

*Women’s History of France, by Sandrine Mirza and Blanche Sabbah, Casterman, 144 pages, €17.95.

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A cabinet of curiosities

A metal corset, a bidet, a Sappho papyrus, a Phrygian cap, Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring, a beater, a leaflet from those resisting the Nazi occupation, “La Fontaine” by Marcel Duchamp…: at first glance , these objects seem to have little in common. However, each tells a story in their own way in which the woman is the subject.

We discover the stories in the surprising work of the Franco-German journalist Annabelle Hirsch, 100 objects tell a story of women (The arenas). A true cabinet of curiosities, this fascinating book is worth the visit as it takes us on an epic journey as singular as it is moving, from the Neolithic to the present day.

The author, tireless “ archaeologist of the feminine » – as the novelist Leïla Slimani describes it at the beginning of this book which she prefaces – transforms famous and everyday objects into witnesses, hitherto silent, of slices of the history of the emancipation of women, here revealed and awake. Thus giving women their voice and the place they deserve! The diversity of the pieces proposed, which fall in particular in the artistic, domestic, literary, intimate or technical fields, like the ingenious vitality of the author’s pretty pen, make the reading of this work particularly fluid and accessible.

Especially since the format allows you to pick out as many little stories as you want, alternating periods, stopping then coming back to them with ease.

*100 objects tell a story of women, by Annabelle Hirsch, translated from German by Corinna Gepner, Les Arènes, 420 pages, €22.90.

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A Women’s Odyssey

By Murielle Szac, the author of this incredible Women’s Odyssey – to be published on October 13 by L’Iconoclaste -, we already knew the work accomplished as director of the “Those who said no” collection. (A children’s series so brilliant that it deserves a little digression: launched by Actes Sud more than 15 years ago, it brings together dozens of novels around historical characters who had the courage, one day, to revolt against name of justice or freedom. To be discovered urgently!).

The children’s author here tries her hand at writing for adults for the first time, with a deliciously educational and accessible work, offering a feminist rereading of the ancient myths which have played such a part in shaping our collective imaginations. Far from classic representations, populated by powerful gods and heroes facing weak creatures, the universe that she opens up to us is full of complex, sometimes powerful women, carried by a breath of freedom.

His pen thus rehabilitates Athena in particular who, under the guise of a “daddy’s girl” – in this case, Zeus – – “ shakes up hierarchies and violates all paternal prohibitions” – ; Aphrodite, victim of patriarchy who escapes a forced union; Artemis the rebel, presented as an ancestor of ecofeminism accepting neither to submit to a man nor to domesticate nature; or even Penelope, a nunuche supposed to spend her life waiting for the return of Ulysses, here portrayed as as indispensable as she is powerful.

Not only does this work exude stimulating erudition – Murielle Szac has mastered this subject on which she has already written extensively – but its form is so joyful and lively, that we would believe we are plunging into strangely familiar tales as bring back to all the variations of what it is to be a woman.

*The Women’s Odyssey by Murielle Szac, The Iconoclast, 304 pages, €20.9. (to be released October 12)