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In memoriam : Francine Descarries (1942-2026)

Catherine des Rivières-Pigeon

Présentation : Femmes et travail alimentaire, de la terre à la table

Manon Niquette and Véronique Provencher

Présentation des articles hors thème

Claire Deschênes and Marie-José des Rivières

« De la terre à la table » : vers une sociologie des rapports sexués de production dans l’agriculture québécoise

Élisabeth Abergel, Julie Francoeur and Elsa Galerand
The authors, in this paper, contribute to the case for a sociology of gendered relations as they are empirically manifested in the ways that farmers of the province of Quebec – men and women – relate to property ownership, means of production, to the labour required for that production, and to the income derived from it. Theoretically, their paper draws on a materialist feminist conceptualization of sex categories and the sexual division of labour. Empirically, it mobilizes data generated by a quantitative survey conducted in 2021 with 514 Quebec farmers of both sexes. Their analysis reveals that ownership of agricultural enterprises remains predominantly male, and that labour necessary for their operation is highly gendered. This gendering is evident both in the distribution of working time and tasks (« domestic » and « agricultural »), but also in both men and women farmers’ own perceptions of this division.

La sortie entrepreneuriale des agricultrices propriétaires uniques : une approche par récits composites

Fanny Lepage, Laurence Godin and Karima Afif
In their article, the authors explore various paths that can lead sole proprietor women farmers to want to stop their farming activities. Based on the analysis of the narratives of 19 women who started a farm on their own in the province of Quebec, three composite narratives were developed. These narratives highlight similarities, such as a strong desire for independence and a difficulty in achieving profitability. They also highlight differences in the apparent causes of a potential halt to these women’s agricultural projects. Some of these causes are voluntary and assumed, others reveal disillusionment, while some appear to be « natural » in the professional life cycle. By considering women farmers as a heterogeneous population and recognizing their strategic decision-making power over the future of their projects, the article makes an important contribution by providing a better understanding of the issues they face and identifying their specific needs in terms of support and guidance.

À l’ombre des oliviers. Draguer, manger, glaner : culture de la récolte et rapports de domination

Lucille Florenza
Based on ethnographic materials drawn from fieldwork conducted in Andalusia, the author, in her article, examines the gendered dimension of olive harvest culture. She hypothesizes that social practices accompanying olive harvesting – flirting, shared meals, gleaning – are not merely folkloric traditions but mechanisms that materialize and reinforce gendered relations of domination. Through participant observation and interviews with olive growers, agricultural workers, and other professionals in the sector, her analysis shows how the olive grove becomes a space which exerts social control over female bodies. She explores how these harvest rituals reinforce the sexual division of labor: staging of heteronormativity and virile masculinity, assignment of women to gleaning and men to theft, and invisibilization of the surplus domestic work assigned to women. Her article thus reveals how traditional culture and gender hierarchies intertwine in contemporary Mediterranean olive-growing societies.

La conciliation études-famille et son influence sur l’alimentation des ménages de mères étudiantes

Julie Delorme and Marie Marquis
In Canada, domestic labour remains unequally divided: women assume the majority of food-related tasks. This dynamic remains little explored among student mothers, whose atypical schedules and cognitive load add particular challenges. The authors developed a conceptual framework to explore the study-family balance, the types of conflicts generated, the coping strategies, and their effects. Based on a mixed methodology combining a survey (n = 169) and individual interviews (n = 8), their study targeted student mothers. The results reveal challenges in balancing family and academic responsibilities, often exacerbated by paid employment. Mothers highlight tensions between their different roles and a lack of time. The division of household foodwork remains unequal and, faced with these constraints, they adopt various food strategies, often associated with negative feelings. Their research invites reflection on domestic labour in atypical and precarious contexts.

Entraves à l’inclusion et à l’autonomie décisionnelle : analyse de discours de la Formation nationale en allaitement du Québec

Chantal Bayard and Annick Vallières
This article examines the discourse of Québec’s National Breastfeeding Training – Revitalization of the Baby-Friendly Initiative (FNA), offered since 2021 to managers, healthcare and social services practitioners, external partners, and the education sector. Using a critical feminist and intersectional approach, the authors combine: 1) an analysis of linguistic and visual markers of inclusion; and 2) a lexical analysis focusing on feeding practices, the individuals concerned, and the support approach promoted by the FNA. Their findings suggest that the training relies on a hegemonic social representation of women or breastfeeding individuals (cisgender, white, heterosexual, middle-class, and able-bodied), and that its support approach tends to reproduce the injunction to breastfeed to the detriment of greater decision-making autonomy for women and concerned individuals. They conclude with recommendations aimed at rethinking the discourse of the FNA.

Le poids de bien nourrir : la surveillance des corps et des pratiques maternelles

Marie-Ève Carpentier
The author, in her article, examines how the practices of the Fondation Olo, aligned with the Integrated Perinatal and Early Childhood Services (SIPPE), contribute – under the guise of a promotion of access to healthy food – to strengthening institutional surveillance of mothers deemed « vulnerable » (Lapierre et Damant 2012). She seeks to understand how nutritional interventions in the perinatal period participate in the control of motherhood. Her analysis is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with eight mothers and six practitioners, as well as a review of institutional documents. It is informed by a feminist approach to neoliberal governmentality, ethics of care, and the concepts of counter-conduct and infrapolitical resistance (Foucault 2004; Scott 1990). The findings show how much food support contributes to reproducing the social hierarchies it purports to mitigate and underscore the need to (re)politicize and collectivize issues related to food and motherhood.

Le droit à l’alimentation au Québec : un enjeu et une analyse féministes

Myriam Durocher
The author provides a feminist analysis of materials collected notably through ethnographic practices inspired by observant participation methods in the context of a collaboration with the Regroupement des cuisines collectives du Québec (RCCQ) regarding the development of a framework law on the right to food. Her analysis unfolds in two distinct but interrelated parts. First, the author develops the theoretical argument that the right to food is a feminist issue since it concerns and involves directly and predominantly a multitude of women, whether in their lived experience of food insecurity or the injustices permeating the food system, or in their work in response to either. Secondly, the author analyzes the process undertaken by the RCCQ, which materializes concretely and specifically the right to food, process carried out according to feminist methods.

Fuir l’agriculture ou y revendiquer sa place : mobilité et mobilisation des femmes dans le milieu agricole au Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, 1900-1980

Häxan Bondu
The early 20th century in the province of Quebec was marked by economic, social, and political changes that directly affected the lives of rural women. Through their relationship with agriculture and their connection to feminism, these women thought, acted, and organized. By paying particular attention to the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, the author aims to better understand the history of those who left agriculture and those who decided to claim their place within it. In addition to improving the knowledge of women’s rural exodus, influenced by their marital choices, she also explores, in her article, the sociopolitical evolution of the Union catholique des fermières (UCF) and the Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale (Afeas), two women’s organizations rooted in rural communities. Positioned between maternalism and social feminism, these associations became important political vehicles, particularly in a remote region such as Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Le couteau ou le fouet? Cuisiner la violence dans l’espace domestique québécois (1945-1965)

Florence Gagnon-Brouillet
In a post-war context marked by a reformist movement, stricter beauty standards, and the rise of a consumer society redefining gender roles, housewives had to comply with an increasingly restrictive set of norms. In her article, the author aims to show how, between 1945 and 1965, the promotion of the « perfect housewife » model led Quebec women to experience violent methods of control perpetrated by their close network. Through cases of domestic and gender violence linked to women’s physical and sociocultural relationship with food, she demonstrates that these social control measures, used regardless of whether women deviate from the norm or conform to it, are employed by the male family unit, mothers-in-law, and confidantes (columnists). Structured around the modalities of violence, her analysis is based on journalistic content and advertisements, and more specifically on « advice columns ».

Le travail alimentaire au féminin : une analyse des récits médiatiques dans le magazine Elle (édition française, 2001-2020)

Clémentine Hugol-Gential
The author analyzes how the French edition of Elle magazine (2001-2020) discursively constructs women’s food-related labor, through a corpus of 991 articles published during the period 2001-2020. Her study highlights how the responsibility for managing food is naturalized as a feminine duty, situated at the intersection of nutritional, ecological, bodily, and consumerist injunctions. Using an information and communication sciences approach, the author emphasizes four structuring axes: educational (transmission of food norms to children), logistical (daily meal planning and organization), bodily (control of the body via thinness), and consumerist (product recommendations and curated addresses). These axes outline a symbolic order in which food becomes a space of gendered assignment. Far from being a mere entertainment object, Elle magazine emerges as a key vector for the dissemination of gender, health, and consumer norms, contributing to a form of media-driven governance of femininity through seemingly benign yet powerfully prescriptive content.

Corps des femmes enceintes sous surveillance : protection, contrôle et résistance

Laurence Charton
Drawing on testimonies from 40 pregnant women collected in the province of Québec during the Covid-19 pandemic, the author, in her article, analyzes contemporary mechanisms of pregnancy surveillance. She engages with Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopower and governmentality, as well as feminist scholarship on reproductive politics. Her study examines how the rhetoric of medical protection legitimizes control over gestating bodies through a dual logic: on one hand, the framing of pregnant women as vulnerable subjects, used to justify medical and social interventions; on the other, the emphasis on individual responsibility, which holds them accountable for risks associated with pregnancy – both for their own health and that of the unborn child.

Représentations des femmes chez des hommes en situation d’itinérance : une reprise de pouvoir sur la masculinité marginalisée

Philippe-Benoit Côté and Alex Dulude
The authors, in their study, describe the representations of women in the discourse of men experiencing homelessness. Drawing on a qualitative approach, their analysis is based on semi-structured individual interviews conducted with 44 men experiencing homelessness, aged 23 to 66 years. Based on the concept of hegemonic masculinity, their thematic analysis highlights four representations of women: the guilty woman, the devoted woman, the vulnerable woman, and the strong woman. These representations show tensions that reveal issues of abdication of responsibility and domination in the discourse of participants. Their study demonstrates the desire on the part of these men to distinguish themselves from women in order to regain power over their marginalized social position. Through their discourse on women, they simultaneously articulate their own self-conceptions, seeking to compensate for a marginalized masculinity affected by homelessness.

La contraception hormonale : point de discussion et de tension au sein des médecines holistiques au Québec

Clara Gargon
Although it is a natural physiological phenomenon, the menstrual cycle remains a taboo subject in Western societies today. However, there is a growing desire among women to reclaim their bodies with holistic medicines, such as naturopathy and acupuncture. This desire goes hand in hand with a questioning of conventional medicine (biomedicine) practices relating to sexual and reproductive health. In this article, the author proposes to explore, from a feminist perspective, how therapists and users of holistic medicine in Quebec perceive hormonal contraception today. This perception is influenced, among other things, by various embodied experiences and general perceptions of the menstrual cycle.

La place des hommes alliés dans la lutte aux violences faites aux femmes : une réflexion de militantes féministes québécoises

Julie Godin, Constance Chevrette, Catherine Lacelle, Noémie Bois, Häxan Bondu, Julie Durand, Camille-Amélie Koziej Lévesque and Catherine Flynn
Many Canadian public policies emphasize the need to engage men in preventing violence against women. However, how can we support this engagement and foster solidarity when the role of men within feminism remains a subject of debate? The article offers a reflection on this topic based on the results of focus groups conducted with the first seven authors of this article, who identify as young feminist activists and experienced activists from the province of Quebec. We explore their experiences with men allies as well as their aspirations and needs regarding their involvement. The engagement of these men in the feminist movement, and more specifically in the fight to end violence against women, requires them to adopt a reflective stance regarding their motivation to identify as feminist allies in order to navigate the potential pitfalls of their participation.

De l’expérience des violences sexuelles au militantisme féministe en ligne : émotions, justice et solidarité

Martine Le Corff
While the criminal justice system is perceived as inadequate, violent, and costly, many victim-survivors of sexual violence choose to engage outside of institutional channels, particularly in digital spaces. Based on ten semi-structured interviews conducted in the fall of 2023 within a qualitative and feminist framework, the author, in her paper, highlights the central role of experiences of sexual violence in sparking political engagement, as well as the importance of emotions, especially anger and a sense of injustice, as key drivers of activism. Her findings also show that participants’ distrust of the traditional justice system leads them to turn to online platforms as spaces for public naming, for reclaiming narratives of violence, and for building solidarity among survivors. These practices transform individual experiences into collective struggles, contributing to the development of a feminist activism rooted in lived experience and resistance.

Gabrielle Richard, Protéger nos enfants. Queerness et adultisme, Montréal, Les éditions du remue-ménage, 2025, 160 p.

Pamela Alvarez-Lizotte

Carol J. Adams, La politique sexuelle de la viande : Une théorie critique féministe végane, Montréal, Les éditions du remue-ménage, 2025, 448 p.

Cloé Bélanger

Marie-Ève Bradette, Langue(s) en portage. Résurgence littéraire et langagière dans les écritures autochtones féminines, Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2024, 187 p.

Nadine Boucher

Louise Toupin, Wages for Housework. La campagne du salaire au travail ménager. Une anthologie, Montréal, Les éditions du remue-ménage, 2025, 356 p.

Johanne Daigle

Johanne Daigle, YWCA Québec. 150 ans au coeur de la vie des femmes, Québec, Septentrion, 2025, 270 p.

Félix Gélinas

Nora Bouazzouni, Violences en cuisine. Une omerta à la française, Paris, Éditions Stock, 2025, 342 p.

Clémentine Hugol-Gential

Julia Lévy-Ndejuru et Marilou Morin-Laferrière, Au-delà de la grossophobie : redéfinir son bien-être et habiter son corps, Anjou, Les éditions La Presse, 2023, 317 p.

Laurence Laberee

Camille Masclet, Le féminisme en héritage. Incidences intimes et transmission familiale, d’une lutte politique, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2025, 342 p.

Élisabeth Mercier

Isabelle Matamoros, Le pouvoir des lectrices. Une histoire de la lecture au XIXe siècle, Paris, CNRS, coll. « Histoire », 2025, 347 p.

Christine Piette

Erica Rayment, What Women Represent: The Impact of Women in Parliament, Montréal et Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024, 240 p.

Manon Tremblay

Chacha Enriquez (dir.), Sexualités et dissidences queers, Montréal, Les éditions du remue-ménage, 2024, 455 p.

Laurence Vallières and Eliane Chaput