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= Les Cahiers du GRIF = Les Cahiers du GRIF is a French-speaking feminist periodical founded in 1973 by Françoise Collin within the Group for feminist research and information (GRIF: Groupe de recherche et d'information féministes) in Brussels. It is a thematic issue journal identifying, exploring, and analyzing a particular dimension of the relationship to the world understood from the point of view of women or gender: kinship, politics, love, sexuality, knowledge, work, creation, etc. through reflections and testimonies. Issues 1 to 24 (1973 to 1978) and issues 25 to 28 (1982 to 1983) were published by GRIF. Issues 29 to 48 (1984 to 1994) were published by Éditions Tierce. The last issue was created in 1994. From 1980 to 1982 a total of seven Bulletins des Cahiers du GRIF have been distributed.

History
A women's magazine. A magazine in which and around which women think and express themselves in their own way: this is what Françoise Collin once felt was needed. She discovered American feminism during a traveled to New York in 1972.

In the early 1970s, more and more women began to dialogue and confront their experiences, struggles and ideas, constituting what was called the Women's Liberation Movement. Its aim was to challenge the hierarchical distribution of gendered roles and the social organizations that support it. The theoretical and political debate thus inaugurated by women constantly oscillated between two trends: one which consisted in claiming the equality of women with men in the world as it exists, the other which consisted to claim, for the very realization of this equality, a change of society. The WLM branch of radical feminism, based in contemporary philosophy, comprised women of racially - and culturally - diverse backgrounds who proposed that economic, psychological, and social freedom were necessary for women to progress from being second-class citizens in their societies.

Françoise Collin returned to Belgium with new ideas and, during in the summer of 1973, she formed a feminist group, the GRIF. It brought together Jacqueline Aubenas, Eliane Boucquey, Marie-Thérèse Cuvelliez, Marie Denis, Hedwige Peemans-Poullet, Geneviève Simon, Marthe Van de Meulebroeke, Suzanne Van Rokeghem, and Jeanne Vercheval. Together they created a new journal, Les Cahiers du GRIF, despite technical inexperience and lack of money. « It was the fruit of various encounters, sleepless nights, dark days, races against the time, letters and texts, burnt or absent dinners, a little sun for some, no sun at all for others and most importantly, a lot of friendship. »

The first issue (1,500 copies) was created on the occasion of the second F day for women which was held on November 11, 1973 in Brussels. These circumstances explained the general character of its theme; they brought the first question, the one that prompted up all the others: what is feminism? And above all: feminism, for what? Distributed simultaneously in Brussels and at the Librairie Maspero in Paris, it was exhausted the same evening.

This magazine was set off without dogmas and strived for continuous improvement with the help of the readers in a dedicated « mail » section open to reactions, criticism and ideas. A broad collaboration was highly encouraged and seen as the most impactful and significant way to progress and enrich the magazine. In addition, a public discussion was organized after the publication of each Cahier, in the hope of arising, in academia or elsewhere, a taste for curiosity and research in the subjects which concerned everyone.

Its interests were initially centered on the problems of the status of women but they did not stop there, because there are no sharp lines between these issues and those that concern society as a whole. In result it identified, explored, and analyzed a particular dimension of the relationship to the world understood from the point of view of women or gender. The aim was to show the gaze of women, to make the voice of women heard, in all areas. Combining testimony and theory, les Cahiers explained, argued and structured throughout the issues the neofeminist thought and analyzes. They explored themes of great diversity: kinship, love, sexuality, knowledge, creation, body, work (household and professional), family, violence, social security, politics, social conflicts, religion, arts, language …

Born in the heart of French-speaking Belgium in the early 1970s, les Cahiers du GRIF did not claim a fixed editorial line but rather the bringing together of different voices and, above all, the possibility for women to meet, discuss, write and have a place of dissemination for their ideas, even the divergent ones. The team responsible for the GRIF was politically and ideologically pluralistic-it was united by common research and objectives. The published articles did not necessarily imply that everyone agreed on all the points raised but rather marked out a journey accomplished together. During the meetings the atmosphere was enriching and cordial, the freedom of speech was total. "There were contradictions obviously. But you felt a will to move forward and move forward in the right direction ”. The texts collected in the issues were both a contribution and an invitation for the readers to develop the topics and deepen the specific fields of reflection invoked in the magazine.

Its organizing nucleus was located in Belgium but its ramifications were international and thus constituted a medium, a space and an essential instrument of the women's movement of the 1970s, then of feminist research in the 1980s and 1990s. At first, they helped to identify the political structure - in the Arendtian sense - of feminism, making it possible to build - by women and for women - spaces of emancipation, collective strengths and public visibility. Secondly, they allowed the dissemination of research on women and feminist research.

Open to all, the preparatory meetings for les Cahiers usually brought together around ten women from different philosophical and social backgrounds. They were occasionally joined by others, especially to contribute in themed issues. Open to foreign collaborations and less radical movements, original and of very high quality, the journal was de facto aimed at an intellectual audience; it was quickly known and renowned abroad, particularly in French-speaking countries.

The presence, among others, of Marie Mineur, Raymonde Harvengt and Christiane Rigomont opened the magazine to workers' questions. Jeanne Vercheval tirelessly insisted that the social dimension of inequalities was not forgotten. She also insisted on the need of not getting lost in overly theoretical debates. « At GRIF, we never had any problems with caste, class, things were quite clear, a bourgeois was no more than a worker, quite the contrary. » « People like Eliane Boucquey or Françoise Collin or Hedwige Peemans Poullet, they were intellectuals who were within our reach. They were listening. We never felt humiliated by their analyzes. They were women with whom we felt good. Me in any case. » Eliane Boucquey suggested to Jeanne Vercheval to dedicate an issue of Cahiers to women workers. Togehther with Hedwig Peemans-Poullet they created the thematic issue « Les femmes font la fête, font la grève ». There are several other articles published in Cahiers where Jeanne Vercheval gives voice to women workers, highlighting their professional difficulties, inequalities in employment, relationships with men, militancy, crisis, unemployment, revolt, strikes. She also mentions abortion, always through the words of women she encountered during her activism.

Les Cahiers du GRIF, founded in 1973 and published in a purely militant way, was the first French-speaking feminist magazine. It quickly gathered a large national and international audience. From 1000 to 6000 copies per issue, it rapidly became the most broadcasted Belgian journal. Despite this success, the publication of Cahiers was discontinued at the end of 1978. The main reason of this stop was on the one hand the fatigue of the group and on the other hand the evolution of feminism.

In 1979, GRIF founded the University of Women, the first initiative of its kind; roughly at the same time the Centro Virginia Woolf was born in Rome, with similar objectives. This women's studies program was launched to ensure that a more culturally comprehensive history of the complex nature of society was developed. The University of Women was inaugurated in November 1979 by an international conference devoted to maternal filiation: Children of man or children of women? to which three hundred women participated. The University experienced constant interest, an average attendance of 20 people (with points of 60 or 70 people) per meeting. The audience also seemed younger than the one the meetings rallied around Cahiers. The objective of this initiative was to raise women’s awareness to the development of their reflection on the problems, theoretical and practical, which are specific to them, so as to favor their individual and collective action on micro and macro-structures. The University of Women welcomed and encouraged all women, because « all women must gradually reach a critical position and a constructive vis-à-vis their own life and society. In fact, and precisely because of the double alienation of women, social and cultural, and in to the extent that our action is necessarily limited, we strive to reach as a priority all those which will constitute "transmission belts » of social change! Students, teachers, professors, leaders of youth movements, mothers, etc., who will have repercussions in their respective backgrounds. And that while hoping attract all other women more widely, gradually. »

Since autumn 1979, the GRIF has been setting up a Documentation center. It has three main areas: books dealing with subjects of interest to women and particularly books relating to the themes addressed in GRIF’s courses and working groups, a collection of journals and periodicals often difficult to access, and last but not least bibliographic files.

After the general assembly of GRIF of April 5, 1982, its activities were divided into two entities:


 * l’Université des femmes led by Françoise Hecq, Martine La Haye, Hedwige Peemans-Poullet ans Geneviève Simon
 * Les Ateliers du GRIF led by Jacqueline Aubenas, Eliane Boucquey, Françoise Collin, Francine Vanberg