Eothen Stearn: Comme une clef, Audio interview (French) [27:33]

I can do both..

I am an old school one. (laughs)

Me too.

No, both are good, a mix between both..

So, we will repeat the collectives. "Us All". Us All, is a collective created to lead the combat against feminicide. It is a big demonstration happening in november, and every year long every time a woman is killed by her partner.

Or her ex.

Or her, ex, etc. There is a system, with internet posting and everytime is written a letter to the President. In order to say "You’re not doing anything! You are not doing anything. You are not doing anything!" So. This year a wide range of places have started using the word "feminicide" officially. It was not the case before, only feminists were using that word.

The word "feminicide".

Yes. We are a part of the National Collectif for Women Rights, that studies laws and makes proposals of laws for the National Assembly (Parliament + Senate). It is indicating what needs to be changed.

It prepares files for..

Yes, exactly. With the help of legal experts, that will write the articles of law. - Great.

There is another collective that remains, even though the law theoretically doesn’t justify it. It defends for free abortion. Because, sometimes, doctors say "I do not want to do it", and the woman is there and she needs to get an abortion right away, and he says no, something about his counciousness or whatever. Usually, there are services in every hospital, to welcome thos women, but often those services disappear, or are shut down.

Why? Do they get privatised?

Because, in France, because health is public, every medical action has a price. It costs. The price of abortion is not very high. It is a small intervention, in an ordinary locale, no big structure involved.. Moreover it doesn’t take a lot of time. Hospitals therefore receive money from the State to organise all this, but the amount is rather small, since the procedure is not that expensive. Therefore, it is not very profitable to hospitals. For them, they have a whole service taken to manage that, but it doesn’t bring enough money, they prefer big surgeries, where there is big money. Therefore abortion services close down. Entire hospitals close down actually, because nowadays it is like cows, like everything. They want to make big stuff, big farms, big hospitals, not small ones scattered around. In France, today, like in many countries, there are activists, militants, that reject abortion. Because they are involved in religions, for them abortion is against God..

"It is killing life."

The religion says..

That indeed life is killed, even when it hasn’t even started yet.

That’s terrible.

Especially considering that at the moment of abortion, the foetus is no viable yet, so we cannot speak about life. It hasn’t started yet.

Also, they would rather have the mom die off depression?

Either die, or live with that unwanted kid..

So. There are groups that still fight on that issue. There are groups that fight

against prostitution. There is a law in France that affirms that prostitutes don’t have to pay fines.

Oh, that exists?

Yes. The clients are being fined.

Exactly. If a woman says "here is my client", she reports him to the police. The police will arrest the client, and fine him.

That’s complicated.

That’s complex, as you said. Nevertheless, in the context of a network, for some women, it is good, it actually saves them. They hide, run away, they are going to see the police, they say "my pimp, I am scared, he’s going to kill me". The police then puts the lady in a safe place, puts her into contact with associations, find her work.. - I was about to interrupt you on that, the associations are doing all the work, not the cops!

The associations do all the work indeed. And they are doing a really fine work. So, you also have the Collective of European Lobby for Women, CLEF..(key in french) - Like a key?

Yes. Like a key. They operate on the european level. In every country, there are structures, which are groups of associations that meet each other, like federations. They work on what are the best situations to find in each country, and try to bring it everywhere else. On what’s best, not the worst parts. That is why it is called a "Lobby". It is mostly discussion, going to organisations, like UN, EU.. Sometimes to put pressure on a government, to say "you signed that convention, but you are not applying it"..

In order to pressure.

Right. There is also a small network that is titled Houses of Women Network. Those are just a few, maybe ten in France.

Really?

Yes, they are rare.

And are disappearing.

They are rare because.. Do you see the woman here, she was our president, the founder, ▓░▓░▓ (…). You see, darling, we cannot fund the feminist revolution with State money! You need to do a bit of diversion!

Careful of what you say, we’re being recorded!

Who cares, she’s dead! (laughs) Anyways, she was saying out loud. - And she was totally right!

Right, because we are presenting ourselves as a feminist association, but I can point very clearly the limit that we cannot overcome. If I say "I am a social association, I receive women, I help them enter a pre-defined box of the ideal citizen".. if I say that, indeed, I find money. Or either I could say "The association takes care of women’s health, abortion, excisions, etc". There is money for that as well. If I say "What the association wants is to free women from patriarchy", there, there is no money available suddenly.

Ok, I get it.

Because indeed, that is what we do. So, we do it under cover of "guiding women through her difficulties". In french, we say that we do not cut women in "sausages slides". Do you get what I mean? It is a typical french expression, because we love sausages. Anyways. It is though true that, if a woman comes in, we listen to her. She starts with something. When the thread is pulled, a lot more comes out. Let’s say, she comes in, and says "I do not speak french well". Okay, sit down. "And I don’t have papers." Ok, we’ll look at it. "I don’t have papers because my husband prevented me from having them." So that is violence made against women, you see, it’s like that. Then the lady says "I’m not okay, I’m not okay.." I remember one saying "I cannot learn french, because in my head is broken computer, too many violence.." - That’s terrible.

.. so I cannot learn words anymore." Right. We are supporting other groups too, like "Feminicides Collages Montreuil".

Oh, I love them.

Did you see how I did?

Yes, in the 4th (arrondissement). You rocked.

Do you know who did it?

One of the girls, before the holidays, I think.

Can you ask her if she would like to tell us her name?

You need to ask ░░░░, I think one of her friends did it.

Really? I find it pity that there is no signature, at least a little one at the bottom.. - I think it’s cool she didn’t sign.. it means she did it for the collective, you know. But it is true she could do more to make her art more visible..

I agree, but, let me tell you something. In the 70s, women were never signing their work. All actions were anonymous. And then others completely ate their work. You know? She can put her name behind, and if one day we need art we’ll look after her! And if we have money, we’ll pay her.

I don’t know why she didn’t sign..

Maybe she’ shy, maybe she didn’t dare… We really suck! We suck! - Yes, that’s possible, you should ask ░░░░. Or ░▓██, maybe she remembers who did it.

I saw her starting it.. She put it dry over there, we thought it looked really good, so she left it there.

Great.

This one needs to be kept.

Of course!

I have another question, is there an association for trans women? - there are some, we collaborate together.

We support them.

But you are not based in the same building?

For now, they didn’t ask. You see? Sometimes it’s like that. The came not very long ago here, to organise a lecture, we made an event, that was interesting. - It was organised by Lexi, from Agressivitrans, I don’t know if you know her, on Instagram.

No, I don’t know her.

She’s the one who came to do the lecture.

We made some posters, we are archiving them now.

Right, her computer presentation, isn’t it?

She didn’t send it to me yet.. I told her though.

It was really well made.

We should have it, so we could..

We could share broader the explanations she gave.

We had small parts of it, we made posters, but it’s not enough. The poster was still here yesterday, I don’t know where I put it.

She taught us words, like.. also, how is the transition happening. - One shouldn’t say transition.

She taught us how it is happening, all the terms, so we can talk together.

In order to not make mistakes, to say things in the right way.

In order to not mis-gender someone.

Exactly. To ask "what is your pronoun?"

Yes, in the beginning, it is good when you do so.

Even, for example, not to ask, if you are not sure and if the person doesn’t speak about it first, then.. you shouldn’t ask.

The lecture was good.

It was.

Then..what’s there again… I forget so many?! Ok. For example we work in partnership with associations that have very specific missions. We work with NID ("nest" in french) association, that supports prostitute women.

They are very good listeners, they receive a lot of messages.

We work with another collective called the Feminist Collective against Rape, that helps women, but also mostly educate associations, to help them go to court, and rape is a crime. Of course, going to court asks for very specific knowledge. - And they very easily reframe rape into sexual agression.

Right. So this association helps on legal matters. There is another one taking care of legal cases, but on violences happening in the work place. Sexism at work. It is called Association against the Violences on Women at Work.

Yesterday, you also said that laws are different in Paris and in Montreuil? - No, it is not different, the law stays the same everywhere in France. However, certain services have the task to make the law respected. Friend! Did you work well without me?

I worked well without you, you gave up on me, I’ll come back another day when you will be more available.

Are there things to sign?

(???)

Ok I will sign this! You are nice, that’s a real friend.

Nice to meet you.

That is Maryline, who does the accounting work, a volunteer as well. We are good co-workers.

How long did you work together?

We have know each other for a long time! 17 years at least.

17 years?

Yes. We are a part of the old members, here from the beginning. It took a while for us to become friends, we didn’t really have the time to see each other, she was working, I was working.. we didn’t get the chance to meet so often. - There you go. Anyways, I’ll be at (???) for a little while more. So I will come back on Friday morning.

We will try Friday to finish things off. I will tell ▓▓▓▓▓▓ de come. What time would you like to leave?

I don’t know, not too late, someone has to come by at home, in the afternoon. - Alright. Let’s plan to finish things around 1pm the latest. It bothers me a little to do both at the same time, ▓▓▓▓▓▓ and ██████..

Well, ask ▓▓▓▓▓▓ to come around 10am.

So, everything is ready, there is only the unemployment procedure that isn’t done. I will look Thursday evening if the situation unlocked, but I’m not fantasising.. - If the 6(?) is unlocked on Friday we’re good. Right. Should I prepare the contract for ▓▓▓▓▓▓?

At the moment I haven’t worked on ▓▓▓▓▓▓’s case. But I removed constraints for

██████. I had things at home, I prepared them..

So did I, I think I had stored informations on my USB..

Okay, anyways, I remade it from scratch. About ▓▓▓▓▓▓, I didn’t prepare anything, because we will see if she agrees.

Anyways I will ask her again about the proposition.

Was it today or yesterday that she made the try out?

On Monday.

On Monday? We are trying to convince her.

So here it is, it is another world. We are learning, us the old folks. We listen, we look. We think "so is the way things happen now". When I was young I was a pain in the ass, so I’m not saying anything now. I was such a pain for the old ones of my generation!

I am a pain in the ass too, I assume it.

Yes. But that’s good! Fortunately there are some like you. Otherwise we never move on! Alright. So we keep on going on ▓▓▓▓▓▓’s case, maybe finish it on Monday. - Yes, if she agrees it can be done in 5 minutes.

Alright.

If she brings all the papers.

I will tell her to do so. We’ll look at what’s missing. I haven’t heard anything about ▓▓▓▒░░░░░▒, I’m watching regularly… What’s that, who’s sending me pictures of i don’t-know-what…

Pictures from a sex-tape?

I mean, I don’t know what it was! I didn’t know if it was a radish or a clitoris. - We’re talking about harrassment, one should not send pictures of their body parts, so she was joking about that and sending pictures from sex-tapes. Is it Griveaux sending you the pics? (laughs)

So, Friday morning, what time will she be here? I put her at 11am. - There is a politician in Paris, that got caught by a russian hacker. He has made a video, chatting with a girl.. He got caught with it. Everyone is making fun of him for a week now. He is a politician who was running for the City Hall in Paris, so he had to quit.

I didn’t get the whole story, about the sex-tape.

So, there is this guy, this politician in Paris, who was running for City Hall. There is a video of him masturbating that came out on the internet. He was chatting with a girl. A russian hacker made the video public. Now, right when elections were about to happen. So he was forced to quit, because he was shameful. Where as, he’s just a normal dude to me! But people started reacting, "how can we trust a guy that acts like this, with a girl, while he is married"?

Oh, he is married?

Well, like many politicians!

Yes, I am not shocked or anything.

I wasn’t shocked either, it just made me laugh. That guy is just regular. - That’s about marriage…

In the same, it is true, how can we trust him? To be the leader of the city, after all. So it is qite funny right now, every one jokes about him.

What’s his name?

Benjamin Griveaux. Write Griveaux on Goggle, this case is the first thing that will come out. The video can’t be seen, it was removed, because they caught the hacker. Anyways, funny. They are all the same!

It is always the same story..

It’s true, they all have the same story. They have money.. I figure.. the russian guy knew the girl that made the video. It feels a bit like a conspiracy. - Is it cold out? I’m gonna put a scarf, to go out and smoke. How are you? Not too tired?

Hello!

You have a meeting right now, is that it?

Yes, we have a meeting with the collective Us All.

Ok, I’m going to leave you here then.