Yvette Roudy died this Tuesday at the age of 97. Feminist activist, European socialist MP and first Minister of Women’s Rights, she considered feminism and socialism as “inseparable” struggles.
Born on April 10, 1929 in Pessac (Gironde) in a working-class environment, Yvette Roudy began working at the age of 17 as a secretary, while taking evening classes. Young married, she followed her student husband Pierre Roudy, future English teacher, writer and theater man, to Scotland. When they returned to France a few years later, she passed her baccalaureate and an English diploma, and became a translator in Bordeaux, then in Paris.
Later, she joined the Women’s Democratic Movement (MDF) and was editor-in-chief of the magazine The woman of the 20th century from 1964 to 1967, but kept his distance from more radical movements. “I never felt close to autonomous feminists, those who rejected politics and parties,” she said.
She was elected in 1979 to the Parliament of Strasbourg, where she met Simone Veil. On May 21, 1981, under François Mitterrand, she became – appointed by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy – the first Minister of Women’s Rights. “I want to form a ministry that works towards its own disappearance,” she said then.
A law in his name
In 1983, a law bearing his name was adopted on “equality of women and men who work in business”. It was also during his mandate that March 8 officially became the International Women’s Rights Day. She also initiated a circular on the feminization of profession names, grades and functions in 1986, now respected throughout society and institutions,
Yvette Roudy was the first to try to put in place, in 1983, a major anti-sexist framework law, denouncing in particular the commercial exploitation of women’s bodies. In vain, due to opposition from advertisers. She later became a deputy for Calvados and finally mayor of Lisieux in the department. A Freemason, she belonged to the Grande Loge Féminine de France.
