Love and Sex Across the Channel Sylvie Chaperon, Vanessa Jérome, Zoe Strimpel, Kaye Wellings and Laura Beers (Chair)
Event details
Against the back-drop of recent events such as the #MeToo movement, our expert panel explores how feminist history, gender studies and studies of sexuality have worked to deconstruct gender stereotypes and give a voice to those who have been marginalised or obscured.
Speakers include Sylvie Chaperon of the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès; Vanessa Jérome of University Paris 1; Zoe Strimpel of the University of Sussex and Kaye Wellings of the the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The session is chaired by Laura Beers of the American University in Washington, DC.
This event is part of our Festival Focus Day, A Date with History: Fashion, food and feminism. Why not stay for the whole day and discover how the iconic symbols of French and British culture – fashion, food and feminism – define our national identity?
Our annual Franco-British collaboration, presented by the French Embassy in the UK, promises to get behind the mythical images of glamour and femininity, and discusses issues linked with gender and cultural history.
You may also be interested in Fighting for Women’s Rights in France and the UK on Friday 14 June and special Festival screenings of the French films The Goddesses of Food on Monday 10 June and Carole Roussopoulos, Une Femme à la Caméra on Tuesday 11 June.
About the speakers
Laura Beers is Associate Professor of British History at American University in Washington, DC. She is the author, most recently, of Red Ellen: the Life of Ellen Wilkinson, Socialist, Feminist, Internationalist (Harvard University Press, 2016).
Sylvie Chaperon is Professor of Contemporary History of Gender at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. She is a specialist in the history of women and gender, feminism and sexuality, Simone de Beauvoir and the origins of sexology. Her books include Les années Beauvoir in 2000.
Dr Vanessa Jérome is a political scientist, Associate Researcher at the CESSP/Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University. Her research, based on biographical approach and ethnographic inquiry, is focused on green political activism and sexual violence in political parties. She is the author of the PhD thesis Militants de l’autrement. Sociologie politique de l’engagement et des carrières militantes chez Les Verts – EELV (2014) (Doing politics in ‘Other Ways’. Political Sociology of French Greens activists. She has already published Briser le silence sur les violences sexistes et sexuelles dans les partis politiques, (Break the silence on the sexist and sexual violence in the political parties) in Esther Benbassa (dir.), Violences sexistes et sexuelles en politique,CNRS editions, 2018, p. 27-32.
Dr Zoe Strimpel is a historian of gender and relationships in modern Britain and a flagship columnist for the Sunday Telegraph. She is the author of two indispensable books about dating and gender, and a forthcoming academic book about the matchmaking industry and the rise of singleness in late 20th century Britain (Bloomsbury 2020). An avid pundit, she very much enjoys her frequent appearances on radio and TV to discuss the mysteries and riddles of modern dating and gender.
Kaye Wellings is Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health Research in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She is a pioneering figure in public health social science, and founded the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal). Brought up in York, she studied Social Science at London University and worked in health policy research at the Family Planning Association, the Health Education Authority and St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London. She moved to LSHTM in 1993 where she led a programme of sexual health research including a cross-national comparison of AIDS campaigns; the first global study of sexual behaviour, based on analysis of data from 59 countries; and a programme of research to evaluate England's teenage pregnancy strategy. She has been awarded honorary fellowships of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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