Every year since 1984, the European Days of Heritage take place during a weekend in September in many places in France. It means that monuments and other places of art and culture are open to the public free of charge. The word heritage in French translates “patrimoine,” which defines heritage as coming from the father or “pater”. Since last year, a group of feminists has organized a counter event called the “matrimoine” (matrimony) to shed light on the forgotten cultural, political, artistic heritage arisen from women.
This year, the official theme was “heritage and citizenship.” Needless to say, the emblem of the French republic Marianne, the woman with a naked breast, is an empty symbol for women’s history. The official website bragged about the importance put on symbolic places of birth of citizenship while the Matrimoine group focused on the symbolic places of the elimination of women from public spaces. Not to forget that full citizenship for French women came late, after the Second World War.
The first author of a theater play in Europe was a woman, Hroswitha de Gandersheim, a German abbess. In France the national theater “la comedie francaise” formed by Moliere in the 17th century used the talent of the playwright Catherine Bernard in 1689. On the other hand, between 1958 and 2002 none of the national theater productions came from a play written by a woman despite the great number of women playwrights.
We went to the center of Paris close to City hall “Hotel de Ville” and “Tour Saint Jacques” to attend the event about the transmission of women’s knowledge, from the “witches” or from the alchemists.
We talk with Moïra Sauvage, one of the initiators of this movement, and with the two comedians, Morgane Lory and Veronique Ataly, who incarnated some witches, their lives and the horror of their deaths, tortured and burnt alive. Their adage said, “Cure with plants rather than with prayers.”
(Image Credit: 50/50)
About Brigitte Marti