'Sexism can kill, it's important to fight it': 'Internet an open bar to sexism, a school of sexism'

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00:00 And that research was conducted by France's High Council for Gender Equality

00:05 and I'm very pleased to say that its president, Sylvie-Pierre Brusselet, joins me live on the programme.

00:10 Thanks for joining us, I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

00:13 Can I ask you first of all about what seemed to me at least one of the most striking things in this report,

00:23 which is that sexism in some ways in France is getting worse, not better, that young people, young men,

00:32 can often be more sexist than their elders. What's going wrong?

00:36 It's a bit strange because we thought that normally with #MeToo, with the fight for women's rights,

00:46 since a few years there's progress in our rights for women and everybody seems to be conscious that it's a good thing, equality.

00:56 And in the same time, we've checked in our two reports, it was already in the report of last year,

01:05 that sexism is really still very important and particularly with the French young adults, men.

01:16 And we explain it by one of the three causes of the sexism that we have highlighted this year.

01:26 As you say, the sexism begins at home, it goes on at school and it explodes on the Internet.

01:33 And I think of the worst incubators, as we say, the Internet is the one that is the worst for young men,

01:44 because they have a model to perform sexual activities or treatment of women that is a disaster.

01:58 Internet is an open bar to sexism. It's a school of sexism.

02:04 Because we've made a report on the most seen videos on Internet, either YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.

02:18 They are all completely sexist and they show models of men, very masculinist,

02:26 women completely confined to maternity and seduction and humour always against women that have a really bad time on Internet.

02:42 So with the increasing importance of Internet in our lives, of course, it has an incidence on mentalities and violence.

02:53 So that's how I explain the bad report of today.

02:56 I was going to ask you that actually.

02:57 So do you make an explicit connection between this rise of sexism, particularly taking place online,

03:05 and violence against women or violence enacted by men?

03:10 Yes, because sexism is a whole. It's what we call a continuum.

03:14 It begins by stereotypes. It goes on with a sort of mild sexism and then a little bit of violence, more violence and even death.

03:26 Sexism can kill. So that's why it's so important to fight it.

03:32 Of course, because it's unjust and it's degrading for women, but also because it's so violent and dangerous.

03:39 And this Internet problem is not really understood by government, parliamentaries.

03:50 It's new. You see, it's a long time we've been that TV is controlled.

03:56 We don't say it's a lack of liberty or creativity.

04:00 We say you don't you can't put torture and violence, real violence on TV.

04:06 Everybody accepts it. If you say you must stop torture in the porno videos and Internet, people say, oh, oh, Rafi,

04:19 you must have some and it's Internet, it's liberty. No, it's danger.

04:25 That's why we say we must do something. And we had a law passed in Parliament.

04:30 I'm very, very proud of the role of the High Council in this matter.

04:37 The MPs voted against the government that was afraid to change anything.

04:45 And I persuaded, I think I made them cry and to take conscious of the horrors that goes on on Internet with the pornography.

04:54 And they voted the interdiction of the scenes of torture and incest and the rape in Internet.

05:04 That would be a great progress. I hope the bill will be passed completely.

05:08 We have to wait a few months, but there are really things you can do and it doesn't cost anything.

05:13 There's no budget in the problem. It's just political decision.

05:21 Sylvie Pierre-Brosselet, there's so much more I'd like to ask you about this,

05:24 but unfortunately we're out of time. I want to thank you, though, for talking to us a little bit here on the French Channel of France 24.

05:29 Sylvie Pierre-Brosselet for us there. The president of France's High Council for Gender Equality.

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