Interview conducted by Pauline Delage.
Apiaf (Association pour l’Initiative Autonome des Femmes; "Association for Women’s Autonomous Initiative") is a Toulouse-based association founded in 1981 by a group of women social workers and women’s rights activists. It provides shelter for women in difficulty, mainly victims of domestic or family violence. More than 1,000 women a year come to the organization’s day centers, and it runs a fifty-six-bed hostel. It is a member of the Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes (French National Federation of Female Solidarity; FNSF), which runs the "3919" helpline number and works with public authorities to combat domestic violence. Apiaf offers both individual and collective support. Through a variety of mechanisms, women meet in discussion groups, collective debates, a writing workshop and cultural activities. It is also a training organization, offering courses for professionals. The association also carries out preventive actions for young people on the issue of boy-girl relations and the promotion of non-sexist behavior. Today, Apiaf is made up of a multi-professional team of 19 employees (representing the equivalent of 13 full-time posts) organized on a self-managed basis.
Discussion groups at the heart of support
Feminist non-mixity forms the basis of Apiaf’s work. How did these spaces for collective discussion come about?
Françoise: You could say that for us, non-mixity was a given. We’d been immersed in the women’s movement of the 1970s. We’d been involved in non-mixed groups, and more particularly in what were known as consciousness groups. It’s fair to say that for most of us, this experience had a major impact. And we’d also been involved in mixed-gender collectives through militancy, unions and parties, and we were convinced that it would be through collective struggle between women that things would change. So, beyond the collective, taking collective action was also a matter of course. In fact, the preamble to our articles of association states that the founders’ aim is to set up structures enabling women “to fight individually and collectively against their oppression.”
How are non-mixed spaces structured and organized?
Maïté: Right from the outset, we set up a number of collective facilities, including a collective reception area, shared apartments and collective activities, in particular discussion groups and debates, which we’ll come back to in a moment. What we really wanted to do was to rediscover the model of awareness groups, and it’s in the domestic violence discussion group that we particularly find it. It’s here that we can work on the question of domination, oppression and subjugation, and ask ourselves whether we have “given in” or “consented”, as Nicole-Claude Mathieu would say. [1]
Françoise: This discussion group is held once a month. Women come to discuss their experiences from a distance. It’s an awareness-raising group, with the possibility of going back and forth, but there’s no commitment to come. It’s about building and elaborating a common way of thinking, which is also what we do among ourselves, among colleagues.
Aurélie: It’s truly extraordinary to see the effects the discussion group has on women. Apiaf’s thinking is that the encounter with feminism will help transform their lives. They talk about themselves so that they can reclaim their lives and move towards what they want, and so that they can look outwards. It’s also a question of enabling them to look at themselves differently, to put an end to the rivalry in which women find themselves, in unchosen mixed or non-mixed settings.
Françoise: What we expect from the discussion group is that women will be able to talk about their suffering, their shame, their guilt, their revolt, their anger, their doubts, their despair, their plans, their struggles. And above all, we believe that, as we said in the 1970s, they will discover that the problems they thought they were alone in experiencing were common to many other women. We even dare to hope that, like us, they will make this a collective cause and “feminize” themselves, so to speak.
Attached to this interview is a transcript of a radio broadcast made by the women of Apiaf about the discussion group. In their own words, they describe the effects of non-mixity better than we could.
It allowed me to share my emotions. I feel like crying, I cry, I tell things I’d never thought of telling. Shame diminishes with each group, it will be understood, and others will outbid me. It’s not like we’re banging our heads against a wall, like when we talk to people outside. We’re on the same wavelength, that’s what unites us.
We don’t want to burden those around us with our unhappiness! Here, we’re talking to strangers, and it’s as if we’ve known each other for a long time. We’re directly connected on subjects. There are others like me and they’re standing up and talking and they’ve moved around and they’ve come out of their homes like me.
It gives meaning to what’s happened to us. In the discussion group, we feel that our suffering is recognized by other people. We’ve been through hell, like war, like slavery, it’s very serious, people can’t realize it from the outside. It’s really like dying while you’re alive. You could have died. And somehow justice doesn’t always recognize. If it recognizes, that’s good: a piece of paper is important, even if it doesn’t take away the suffering. But between us, we recognize each other, we know what we’ve been through, so in a way it’s a recognition of what we’ve suffered as victims. It’s a recognition, and it’s only here that we can find it, with people who have been through the same thing, who understand without judging, and who are ready to listen to us and support us, because we can stay for years in the discussion group. For us, the most important thing, even if the courts don’t do anything, is to have proof from our counsellors that there’s something going on inside us that we can’t see. Mais on continue à se battre et c’est pour ça qu’on dit qu’on est des femmes courageuses – parce qu’on a dit stop, ça ne peut pas continuer. On se bat pour nous et pour nos enfants et pour montrer aux autres femmes que ça doit s’arrêter, ne pas attendre !Sinon c’est la mort qui arrive.
Toutes les femmes que j’ai rencontrées, je les vois comme des femmes fortes. Toutes les femmes ici avaient un grand sens des responsabilités et du devoir, donc pour elles il fallait assumer ce qu’elles avaient commencé.
On se sent réconfortées, conseillées par la personne qui a vécu la même chose que nous. Elle a pu surmonter sa douleur et du coup on donne des conseils pour qu’on puisse s’augmenter.
Il y a un équilibre entre les anciennes et les nouvelles. Ça fait toute une alchimie, un petit équilibre, un soutien. On vit une évolution en général. Les femmes au fur et à mesure deviennent plus jolies, plus souriantes, prennent plus soin d’elles – sont plus heureuses en fait. On voit qu’elles se reconstruisent.
J’ai été très étonnée qu’il y ait des Françaises dans le groupe de parole. Je pensais que ça n’existait pas chez les Européens.
Non-mixed activities in order to break patterns of dominance
In addition to discussion sessions, certain collective spaces are focused on other specific activities. How do you envision these spaces?
Maïté: Another central feature in the life of the association is what we call the “collective space for exchanges, cultural activities and project development”. The debates that take place here can be distinguished from the discussion group. In a discussion group, women’s suffering is expressed, and issues of alienation and oppression are exchanged, whereas in this space, women’s strengths, potential and resources are expressed.
Another central feature in the life of the association is what we call “l’espacaThis collective space has metamorphosed over time. At first, it was called the “study room”. In the 1980s, women were talking about training, going back to school, diplomas. We no doubt wanted to be “allies of ascent” for them, as Rose-Marie Lagrave would say in her “autobiography of a class defector”. [2] The name “study room” was probably chosen because most of us were keen to assert that women’s emancipation depended on instruction, training, culture, study and diplomas. We’d lived with mothers, grandmothers, aunts and cousins who, although they’d been first in the canton, had always regretted becoming seamstresses, housewives or home helpers when they’d dreamed of being schoolteachers. We wanted to offer women an enriching cultural context and support for their return to school.e collective of exchanges, cultural activities and project development”. It’s fair to say that the debates that take place here are quite distinct from the discussion group. In the discussion group, women’s suffering is expressed, and issues of alienation and oppression are exchanged, whereas in this space, women’s strengths, potential and resources are expressed.
Aurélie: This collective space brings together a number of activities that are more or less developed depending on the period: collective debates on social issues, debates on children’s education, on women’s health, a writing workshop, cultural outings, a computer workshop, a DIY workshop, a ciné-club, sometimes film-making. We sometimes invite outside speakers—an economist, an andrologist, a cleaning women’s cooperative, etc.—to talk to us. Today, we’re finding it hard to keep up with the regularity of these debates. The urgency and the worsening of women’s situations pull us too much towards individualized care. Only the writing workshop remains very regular.
In these activities, the women gradually dare to speak up in a group, and the fact that they’re not mixed encourages this. One of them put it very well in an interview: "Suddenly, between women, the shyness, the lack of self-confidence, the doubts about my own abilities, the perpetual fear of not being up to the job, were all gone. All that vanished in the miracle of a brand-new complicity. I discovered the freedom to speak and the joy of being listened to. That’s exactly how I felt when I started taking part in Apiaf’s discussion group and writing workshop."
Maïté: These activities also show that our gendered socialization means that we have a common culture, a relationship with the world, a relationship with knowledge, a specific relationship with the body, and so on. From childhood onwards, women do not project themselves into the future as men do; they are often caught up in a discourse on feminine nature that prevents them from situating themselves in history, and their relationship to schooling is specific. Women have specific religious practices. Getting together with other women allows us to become aware of the importance of social construction and its possible deconstruction, to talk about our “choices” and our class or gender determinisms, and above all to get away from the belief in fatalism.
Aurélie: There are also “Wednesday conversations”. The study rooms are formalized, sometimes with outside speakers, and are open to women from the reception and accommodation departments. On Wednesday afternoons only, the women in accommodation come together for a “conversation”. We started out from the fact that the reception of women in shelters was highly individualized, and this made us suffer, as it distanced us from our initial objectives. We talk about a wide range of subjects, both serious and trivial, including current affairs and social issues, as well as so-called “women’s topics”: love, children, family, cooking, music, aesthetics... What’s at stake is getting to know each other, the pleasure of being together, getting together around a “women’s culture”, sometimes considered a “sub-culture”!
Creating a space of feminist awareness-raising
In these different moments, how do you approach the question of domination and feminism?
Maïté: Sometimes we wonder if women realize that we’re feminists! Above all, we try not to be didactic. We’re sure they’ll need feminism to overcome what they’ve been through. Often, they will deconstruct their a priori about feminism. As far as relationships of domination are concerned, they are the ones who become aware of them through a long process of development.
Françoise: The link with feminism is made constantly in the discussion group. For example, one of us will link a story with women’s history and say: “But you realize, it was only in 1965 that women...”. Nobody comes back from it, and we don’t come back from it either. We ourselves are outraged by these dates! But we’re going to try to connect the dots. Many of the women we see thought that a man was going to save them: that’s one of the things we talk a lot about, what they expected from an encounter with a man. In a discussion group, we could say that in the 1970s, the slogan was that “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”.
In this protected space, women feel stronger to face up to their history as victims of violence. It’s as if this space placed us outside patriarchy and a symbolic oppressor. We allow ourselves to talk, to say things, sometimes huge things that make us all burst out laughing. For example, I remember one woman who, during an exchange about infidelity—because for some, being cheated on is worse than violence—listed all the horrible things he’d done to her and added: “At least he didn’t cheat on me.” It was so huge that everyone, including her, burst out laughing. It may sound very shocking, but it’s dictable here and between them. They often have a great sense of humor about what they’ve been through.
Aurélie: We also encourage what we call “anchoring and affiliation to the structure”. We hope that the collective will make them stronger and give them the desire to fight for the cause of women. And sometimes that’s how they feel. They talk about “community”, belonging to a group, fighting... They say it better than we can on the radio show:
In the beginning, the support group was necessary because it was a psychologist, a social worker, an outlet, girlfriends: EVERYTHING, it helps us with everything. In the beginning, it’s vital. Afterwards, it’s like a safety valve, a stabilizer. It’s a bit like a community in the end—because it’s only between us that we understand each other and keep up the fight, I’d like to say. We see others arriving, we see them on the street—we can give them addresses.
The support group allows us to belong to a group. If the common denominator is terrible, it’s powerful. By feeling that we exist within the group, we regain confidence in our individuality and find the strength to radiate outwards.
At first, it’s a fight for us first and foremost, but it becomes a fight to really change things, to change mentalities, the evolution of women, of justice, of treating human beings well, and really for the rights of women in the world in relation to violence.
At first, I didn’t see everything I see now. I was much more submissive for real! Now I realize that we have the right to be free. It’s really becoming a personal and general battle, for others, to change things.
Non-mixity among professionals, and relations with women supported
Unlike other associations of the "Fédé" [Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes, FNSF], you are also keen to create a non-mixed group of professionals.
Maïté: Apiaf was created by activists from the women’s movement. Even before setting up the association, we put a great deal of thought and planning into it. There were no men anywhere who prioritized the issue of women’s oppression, inequality and domestic violence in their struggles. Men came into the FNSF network when there was salaried employment, when they could be paid, and today in several associations they are directors and managers, as director’s qualifications are now required and few women can be found to take on these functions. At Apiaf, all the people recruited are women’s rights activists. It’s very rare for men to apply, and they’re always up against competition from women who have been activists or have held positions where the gender issue was fundamental.
Françoise: Many social sectors are not mixed, but this is not by choice. CHRS [Centres d’hébergement et de réinsertion sociale] are not mixed: there are CHRS for women, for men and for couples. We’re banking on the fact that non-mixity has an effect. It’s neither a goal nor an end in itself, but a feminist tool. As we have described, we believe that the effects of non-mixity are very rich. We believe that even in unchosen non-mixity, work on deconstructing gendered socializations could be fruitful, in both women’s and men’s groups.
Aurélie: It should also be pointed out that our team is “self-managing”. We’d need another interview to talk about the importance of non-mixity for our self-management. We are a college of leaders, there is no hierarchy. Our non-mixity is very active, and in forty years we’ve never questioned the way it works. It’s very rich and complex. It requires a great deal of exchange, debate and reflection on our practices. But it is very well accepted by our “evaluators”, as it turns out to generate an exceptionally low number of sick days!
How do you deal with the social differences between you and the women you welcome?
Aurélie: Personally, I still feel close to the working-class women we welcome; not financially, because I have a full-time job; beyond the economic question, the question of class rests very much on a cultural dimension and from this point of view, I don’t feel completely out of step with them. What’s more, non-mixity at Apiaf has been a tool of emancipation for me too. When I joined Apiaf, I was young and didn’t dare speak out. The self-confidence I have today comes from the Apiaf framework, which has enabled me to feel stronger on the outside, more legitimate as a political player.
Françoise: I agree with what you say and I feel a kind of paradox. I can imagine my life without Apiaf as a tool for emancipation. I was a psychologist in a guidance center, I had a hierarchy... I would surely have had a very sheltered life. Apiaf enabled me to position myself completely differently. I don’t think I would ever have been head of department anywhere, because I could never have imagined it, even though as a psychologist I could. Being self-managed, always working in pairs, in a collective, has enabled me to become responsible for the structure, because I’m always co-responsible.
Maïté: Most of us, the founders of the association, came from working-class backgrounds, some of us from rural areas. We’d experienced the upheavals of the transclasses. We were therefore familiar with the culture of the women we welcomed, we were used to family solidarity and this led us to a certain obviousness of solidarity. But a gap opened up as economic problems worsened and social reproduction became relentless.
Françoise: The paradox is that, with precariousness on the rise today, there are times when I feel we can’t expect women to emulate each other. Right from the start, Apiaf worked on the question of feminism in relation to class—we talked much less about race relations. We started from the fact that we were relatively privileged, because the more precarious women weren’t necessarily part of the mobilizations, unless they were in the factory and in the unions. Thinking about women’s multiple affiliations has always been at the heart of our feminism. But this difference with the women we welcome has grown: we were closer to the women we welcomed then than now. These women worked like us, and we didn’t work full-time. Women have too many emergencies to deal with, too many obstacles in their daily lives, and that shapes our practices. If we always try to work towards citizenship, we’re always drawn back towards extreme emergencies, extreme poverty. We all feel it. Within the team, we try to pull ourselves together by constantly asking ourselves: “What’s the most urgent thing? What do we expect from women? What do we still share with them? What can they bring?”
In recent years, the public authorities have taken greater responsibility for the issue of domestic violence. Have you noticed any effects of this change on your work?
Marik: Yes, for the past 10 years or so, public authorities have shown a strong desire to be active on this subject. More recently, the #MeToo wave and a tremendous remobilization of feminist associations on this issue, but also the media coverage of the Catherine Sauvage trial are leading to a change of tone in the media and a display by all political parties against violence against women. In September 2019, the current government has launched a major communication campaign on the issue of domestic violence: the Grenelle, with a focus on the issue of feminicide. This “spectacular and high-profile” focus on feminicides camouflages the underlying issues, in particular the continuum between the different forms of violence and the structural issues of male domination, and the inadequacy of the justice system in particular for this type of violence.
The effects on our work are paradoxical. Firstly, more and more women are coming to us, often well informed of their rights, and demanding appropriate care. When they decide to reject their situation as victims, it’s with a great deal of revolt, and they will be astonished at the many dysfunctions and pitfalls in their path out of violence. We need to work with them to go beyond formal rights, to question the non-application of these rights and the overall context of gender relations. Secondly, specialized associations have come out of their isolation on these issues, and many of our arguments are taken up; we are, for example, more in demand as a resource association by partners who are social workers.
At the same time, however, the proposed government schemes rely on new experts and marginalize our feminist associations (justice, health, social work, education, training, etc.). While we propose a global and political analysis of the various difficulties faced by women, different specialists in their fields are brought to the fore, as if the solutions were individual and technical. Partnerships with the police and the justice system are highly inadequate, and fail to build a common culture.
