Abstract EN:

The study population is exclusively French men. Specifically of concern is the younger generation of Frenchmen, the inheritors of 1970s feminism. Men under the age of thirty six are of particular interest. The study includes men from three socio-cultural groups: urban, rural and semi-urban. The first section consists of an exploration of the subjects' representation of feminism. What knowledge do they have of the topic? What role does antifeminism play? First observations: Notions of feminism are often interiorized but frequently unconsciously, that is, without a verbalized adherence to its principles. Why and how are feminist principles interiorized? What is happening in society that feminist ideas are interiorized but not acted upon? The second section addresses the resistance that exists to feminism both in French men and in French society in general. How to explain when the feminist cause has not been taken to heart or has been rejected? Traditional values, interactions with the socio-cultural environment or with women, ail have an important influence on how and if feminist values are interiorized. Finally, the study shows that due lo feminism, French men have changed their way of thinking. Their experience of equality with French women is an opportunity to enrich their sense of self as well as a chance to explore deferent facets of their masculinity that were previously unknown or repressed. Feminism obliges men to reposition themselves in their relationship with women as well as with existent models of social behavior. It imposes a new factor in sexual relations as well as in the relation to self-liberation: feminism permitted women to emancipate themselves from the model of patriarchy; it aIso allowed men to distance themselves from that same model, to create the contours of a new identity, a liberated masculine identity