The Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF, ) is a French autonomous, single-sex feminist movement that advocates women's

bodily autonomy Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily int ...

and challenges

patriarchal society Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...

. It was founded in 1970, in the wake of the American

Women's Lib The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

movement and the events of May 1968. The movement challenges traditional forms of militancy: it operates through general assemblies, small decentralized groups and has a repertoire of extra-parliamentary actions such as the organization of events, the creation and signing of petitions, the holding of public meetings, etc.

History

On August 26, 1970, a dozen anonymous activists laid a wreath under the Arc de Triomphe in praise of the Wife of the Unknown Soldier. This action was led by nine women, including

Cathy Bernheim ''Cathy'' is an American gag-a-day comic strip, drawn by Cathy Guisewite from 1976 until 2010. The comic follows Cathy, a woman who struggles through the "four basic guilt groups" of life—food, love, family, and work. The strip gently pokes f ...

Christine Delphy Christine Delphy (born 1941) is a French feminist sociologist, writer and theorist. Known for pioneering materialist feminism, she co-founded the French women's liberation movement (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, or MLF) in 1970 and the j ...

Monique Wittig Monique Wittig (; July 13, 1935 – January 3, 2003) was a French author, philosopher and feminist theorist who wrote about abolition of the sex-class system and coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". Her seminal work is titled ''The Straigh ...

Christiane Rochefort Christiane Rochefort (17 July 1917 – 24 April 1998) was a French feminist writer. She was born into a left-wing working class Parisian family; her father joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Rochefort worked as a journ ...

and Namascar Shaktini. Their banners displayed this phrase: "There is more unknown than the unknown soldier: his wife". They were immediately arrested by the police, but the next day the press announced "the birth of the MLF". At its origins, the MLF was neither a movement nor a political party: no leader was tolerated. The movement is composed by collectives and small groups. The feminist militants want to fight in all fronts, based on the principle that " the private is political". They reject the ideals of beauty imposed by the patriarchal diktat, claim for nurseries, ask their partners to share domestic tasks. The sexual revolution has gone through it: they denounce rape, incest and sexual assault, and fight for abortion. One of the first actions of the movement was to support the rebellion in the center for pregnant teenagers from Plessis-Robinson, who were between 13 and 17 years old. At the end of 1971, the residents began, with the help of the MLF, on a hunger strike to refuse the fate that was imposed on them: excluded from their school, marginalized by their own family, mistreated. Alerted by the MLF,

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...

went to meet them, accompanied by journalists.

Economic and Political Progress

The women of the women's liberation movement profoundly transformed society and values during the second half of the twentieth century. They encouraged a considerable change in the conception of

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

, in particular the reforms on the

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

, professional and parental equality, and the law on parity.''Génération MLF 1968-2008'', éditions des femmes, 616 pages

References

1970 establishments in France Feminist organizations in France {{fem-org-stub