The New French Revolution

Muslim women are finally fighting back against their male counterparts in the ghettos of France. The feminist group Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissives) has defied the conspiracy of silence surrounding the extreme acts of violence perpetrated against young minority women.

Many immigrants and their descendents in France’s housing projects have refused to accept this country’s way of life, clinging to conservative, often paternalistic cultures that do not translate in the France of today.

With the added burden of high unemployment and discrimination, some young males in the ghettos, often of Muslim heritage, direct their aggression inward, acting as self-appointed morals cops and guardians of their families’ honor, said [Fadela] Amara, [President of Ni Putes Ni Soumises], the daughter of Algerian immigrants who was raised in a housing project in central France.

The group’s name is provocative — and intentionally so. “Not whores” is aimed at young thugs who refer to all women except their mothers as whores, while “not submissives” is directed at intellectuals, politicians and other observers to alert them that merely because these women are oppressed, it does not mean they are simply passive.

“The movement Ni Putes Ni Soumises is like a return to the classic feminist movement of the 1970s. The only problem left, the last (challenge) of the feminist movement, is political parity,” she said...

Teenage girls in the projects are often caught between their families’ restrictive culture and the aggression of boys their own age. The consequences — sexual harassment, forced marriage and, in some cases, gang rape and murder — are real, the stories heart-wrenching...

“There are only two types of girls” in the housing projects, Bellil, who died of stomach cancer in 2004 at the age of 33, wrote. “Good girls stay home, clean the house, take care of their brothers and sisters, and only go out to go to school. Those who … dare to wear make-up, to go out, or to smoke, quickly earn the reputation as ‘easy’ or as ‘little whores’.”

Sohanne Benziane, a 19-year-old Muslim girl from Vitry-sur-Seine, a southeastern suburb of Paris, was burned alive in her housing project’s trash area in 2002 for refusing the advances of a local thug. The alleged murderer, who in April was sentenced to 25 years in prison, was cheered by youths on the estate when he returned with police to reenact the crime.

The horrifying details of Benziane’s death shocked France and helped lead to the formation of Ni Putes Ni Soumises.

Ni Putes Ni Soumises boasts 6,000 members plus many more volunteers and dozens of local branches.