La rebelle - a bottle of wine in the feminist tradition

I said it would take at least 10 posts to begin to do justice to our feminist theology evening last night and I sense that I am probably going to run out of energy before I get to the end of what I want to say - unlike our brilliant 89 year old speaker Jacqueline Berenstein Wavre.

We always give our speakers a present to say thank you for their time and last night Ria carefully included a bottle of local pinot noir wine from this vinyard which celebrates local Genevan and Swiss personalities for it various "cuvées".

La rebelle is the female rebel and as soon as Jacqueline received it she started to talk to us about Emilie Gourd in whose memory it is named. I did not know that Gourd had founded an early feminist journal called "le mouvement féministe" in 1912. It will celebrate its 100 anniversary in just under two years. The journal has gone through problems in recent years as has much print media but is continuing with a web presence which I think I may have manged to track down here.

As is often the case when you remember one person from the past you also recall others and speaking about Emilie Gourd prompted Jacqueline to talk to us also about her friend Jeanne Hersch, who had been a close friend of her husband's and a passionate defender of human rights.
So much to learn about about women's history, so much to read, so much to be enlivened by ... just like good rebellious wine!

"La Rebelle" rend hommage à Emilie Gourd, Genevoise qui se battra toute sa vie pour la condition féminine. Ce n’est qu’en 1960, quatorze ans après sa mort, que son rêve se réalise enfin : le droit de vote est accordé aux citoyennes genevoises.