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A great communicator and woman committed to the defense of equality between men and women, Janette Bertrand signs this fall a new novel which tackles, through fiction, a hot topical subject. Ordinary rape, novel-shock, is written in the wake of the #MeToo movement and the wave of denunciations that has swept through Quebec recently. As always, Janette tries to understand what is going on and to change mentalities.
The novel tells about the effects of the gestures of an average individual, an “ordinary guy” who, one evening, forces his girlfriend to do a sexual practice that she does not want. Even though she says “no” several times he continues. And gets denounced.
His mother, overwhelmed by events, seeks to understand why her son has crossed the line. She questions her own journey as a woman, a wife, a mother, examining the situation from all angles.
She tries by all means to open the discussion with her trucker husband, by email when he is on the road and in person when he comes home, but the dialogue between them is tense. She tries to understand. Rather, he closes the doors.
Julie realizes that old mentalities are stubborn. But little by little, by dint of exchanges between them and with other characters in the novel, she gets her message of change and equality across.
Slow evolution
The battle for gender equality and respect for the condition of women, in the private and public sphere, are at the heart of the novel. In great shape, she talks with a lot of energy about her new book, in an interview.
Has Quebec society evolved over the past decades? “Ah … We’re changing slowly,” she concedes. “Mentalities are what take the longest to change. Having a new way of life does not happen overnight and we, Quebeckers, are terribly marked by religion. We must not get rid of that from the idea. It’s still like that. “
Six months of research
To write this novel, Janette Bertrand did her research. “I spent six months with social workers. I really did my homework. And then, 94% of rapes in Quebec are ordinary rapes, that is to say with people you love, people you know. It happens, rapes, of a woman who gets off the bus and is raped in the dark … but it’s 5%. Yet that’s what women are most afraid of. ”
Janette Bertrand, 95, believes she is one of the first to talk about the concept of “ordinary rape”. “The young women of my publishing house found it extraordinary: well, someone is talking about this!”
She wanted to write on the subject because she finds that “things are not going fast” after #MeToo. “I do a lot of lectures, I meet people, and what I hear is guys don’t change. If the guys don’t try to figure out what happened with these denunciations, they stay in the denial. ”
Submission
So she created this story. “I made a good guy, in an ordinary family, 39 years old, who did that. Men feel legitimate to do this. And women, we’ve come a long way to be nice, to do what the guy wants. I got married, and in the law it was written, “You owe submission to your husband.” Submission also means in bed.
“I remember an expression from my father, who always said that love was, ‘Bing, bang, turn around, then sleep.’ And I learned a lot from my 17 years of courier du coeur. ”
♦ A great communicator, Janette Bertrand has written novels, essays and numerous television dramas.
♦ She created and hosted several shows aimed at breaking down prejudices and taboos.
♦ She has received several prestigious awards and numerous distinctions.
♦ Her “Write your life” project offered to seniors during confinement was a hit: Janette received 75 biographies of 75 pages! These texts will be grouped together, published and integrated into an exhibition project by the Musée de la civilization.
