Thérèse Clerc (1927–2016) was a French militant
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
who was active principally in the city of
Montreuil. A member of the Movement for Freedom of Abortion and Birth Control (Mouvement pour la liberté de l'avortement et de la contraception, MLAC), she performed clandestines abortions for women in difficulty in her small Montreuil apartment until 1975 when abortions were legalized under the
Veil Law
A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has been prominent i ...
. In 2000, she founded the Maison des Femmes, a cultural, social and feminist centre for women who had been the victims of violence, later renamed Maison Thérèse Clerc. For many years, Clerc fought for the establishment of a self-managed home for elderly women in Montreuil, finally succeeding with the Maison des Babayagas in 2013.
Biography
Born on 9 December 1927, Thérèse was brought up in a middle-class home in the city of
Bagnolet where her father worked for a bookmaking company. After entering the hatmaking trade, she married an industrial cleaning entrepreneur when she was 20. With four children to care for, she became a housewife.
As a catholic, she was selling the weekly journal named « ''
Témoignage chrétien
The clandestine press of the French Resistance was collectively responsible for printing flyers, broadsheets, newspapers, and even books in secret in France during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. The secret press was use ...
'' » and meeting priests workers back from military service in
Algeria. « I met
Marx in the church on Charonne street » as she said.
However, the Church position about women drove her away from it.
Nevertheless, at the end of her life, she admitted being more agnostic than atheist even maybe believer (God is a « questioning because he’s not demonstrable. God is credible only in doubt, I find it fun » she is declaring
).
In the 1960s, she worked in a department store. She took part in demonstrations against the wars in Indochina and Algeria and became an activist in favour of legalized abortions as a member of the MLAC. On obtaining a divorce in 1969, she bought a small apartment in Montreuil where she performed clandestine abortions until the Veil Law was adopted in 1975.
[
In 2000, Clerc founded the Maison des Femmes in Montreuil, dedicated to assisting women who had faced violence to re-integrate into normal life. She went on to establish a self-managed retirement home in 2007. The Maison des Babayagas provided facilities for elderly women, encouraging them to live together freely and constructively. In addition, maintaining that it was never to late to learn, she founded a university for older people. Open to all, her Université des Savoirs sur la Vieillesse (UNISAVIE) was the first of its kind.][
In 2008, in the presence of Simone Veil, she was honoured with the Legion of Honour.][
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clerc, Therese
1927 births
2016 deaths
People from Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis
French feminists
French women's rights activists
French LGBT rights activists
Knights of the Legion of Honour
Women civil rights activists