It all began on March 8th, 2013: International Women’s Day. The French Ministry of Women’s Rights organized an initiative, Every Day is the 8th of March, that invited stakeholders, ranging from established organizations to newly-formed collectives, to organize an event every day of the year that highlights issues of gender and women’s rights. Each day, they featured one of these events on their website « Le 8 mars c’est toute l’année » (www.8marstoutelannee.fr).

Robert Dorit, Professor of Biology and Smith College’s Director of the Paris Study Abroad Program in 2012-13, was invited to contribute to this initiative. He had the idea of creating a website featuring interviews with a broad range of participants, each discussing how they interpret and relate to the concept of feminism.

Upon my return to France, Robert Dorit approached me with the plan for this site. We assembled a film team – myself, Sarah Oquendo and Nathan Mauvois – to realize the proposed series of interviews, where participants, both men and women, give their personal definition of feminism. We enlisted the aid of a small internet design firm, Ow-Lab, to help imagine the website. There, web designer Rony Turlet and data managers Guillaume Amangoua and Delphine Gauthier created the site (whatsupwithfeminism.org / quoilefeminisme.org), which launched nine months later. This site was a team effort, and the members of the team behind this project have been invaluable. It would have been impossible without the effort, creativity and energy of all involved.

This project has given me the opportunity to meet courageous women and men willing to confront their personal doubts, struggles, and convictions. While I was filming the interviews, I realized I too was searching for my own response to the word “feminism.” The term and its implications seemed complex and, at times, contradictory. As I recorded the reflections of over 100 interviewees, I discovered a vast array of interpretations that have served to deepen and nuance my own reflections of the topic.

I believe our project lifts the veil on a topic that has once again become taboo. Today, the word “feminism” has been devalued and has come to be seen as old-fashioned or irrelevant; it is hard to even raise the issue of feminism without having to justify oneself. It is time to once again take back the debate and to offer each of us a space in which to express our own definitions of and interactions with the word “feminism.”

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www.whatsupwithfeminism.org aims to provide a rich and animated comparative perspective on what it means to be a woman or a man today. We urge you to visit the site and to contribute to the conversation. If you wish to participate in the debate, please contribute to the site by submitting your own video commentary (1-2 minutes maximum length) to pauline@quoilefeminisme.org. The last word is yours.

Pauline is a French film director. Her films, documentary or fiction, show the part of women in the world. During her study at Smith in the American Studies Diploma Program, she directed a movie about another student in her program, Yuanyuan Liu, who was doing a research for a thesis on Chinese women learning Mandarin and English in the early 20th century at Qinling College, a sister-college of Smith. This movie, ‘A New Chinese Woman,’ is available in the Smith Archives.

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