Bold feminist poster campaign strikes a chord in Paris and beyond

A feminist poster marketing campaign in Paris that pulls on road artwork methods to denounce rape, sexual harassment and homicide is placing a chord with metropolis residents and galvanizing copycats as far afield as China, its creator stated.

Over the final yr, activists have been pasting partitions with white A4 paper sheets painted with black letters to spell out messages reminiscent of “She’s not dressed as a slut. You think like a rapist” and “Women are screaming. The state remains silent”.

“In the beginning, we addressed our messages to politicians, urging them to act about domestic violence,” stated Marguerite Stern, 29, who initiated the marketing campaign by placing up a number of poster messages and sharing images of them on social media.

While the federal government “has done nothing concrete”, the posters have given girls a discussion board and helped change how they strategy public areas, Stern advised the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“They help those who put up the posters and also those who just walk by and see the messages, because they feel they’re not alone any more,” she stated.

Putting posters on metropolis partitions is against the law in France so the “Gluers”, as they’ve turn into identified, work rapidly and usually after darkish to keep away from being noticed.

Although France grew to become the primary nation to cross a regulation punishing public sexual harassment in August 2018, girls say they proceed to be subjected to catcalls, insults and violence once they stroll on the street.

1 / 4 of French girls aged between 18 and 29 are afraid when they’re out within the streets, and at the least 20% face harassment at the least every year, based on a 2019 report by the nation’s INSEE statistics bureau.

Nearly 70% of younger girls residing within the Paris space have suffered sexual harassment or violence in public, one other authorities research discovered.

Stern’s first poster message, which she put up in February 2019, recalled her experiences of sexual harassment on the streets of Paris and later in Brussels.

“Men on the street have been making comments about my appearance since I was 13,” the poster learn.

She adopted it up a month later with a stinging criticism over a femicide case: “Julie was killed by her ex on 03.03.2019. She had made five complaints.”

France has Europe’s second-highest femicide fee after Germany, the Eurostat knowledge reveals.

The variety of girls killed by their associate or ex-partner within the nation rose by a fifth in 2019 to 146, based on figures launched by the French Interior Ministry in August.

Eager to share her placing protest medium, Stern made an enchantment on social networks for fellow activists and ladies to get entangled.

Since then, comparable poster messages have popped up elsewhere in Europe and in China, she stated.

Chloe Madesta, 27, who belongs to a Paris-based “Gluers” group, stated activists typically face hostility from males once they spot them sticking up the posters.

“We’ve been pelted with eggs, vegetables, all sorts of things,” she stated. “A group of women in Montpellier was almost run over by a car.”

Although the posters are sometimes torn off or painted over, their photographs survive on social media, inspiring extra activists to unfold their messages on metropolis partitions.

“The fact the posters are defaced means their message is striking a chord,” Stern stated. “Our fight is not over yet.”

(This story has been printed from a wire company feed with out modifications to the textual content.)

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