Marie-Joseph Bertini's 'Ni d'Eve ni d'Adam' Challenges Gender and Patriarchy

In her book 'Ni d'Eve, ni d'Adam: défaire la différence des sexes', published by Éditions Max Milo, Marie-Joseph Bertini argues that gender, family, and capitalism are the keystones of the patriarchal system. She critiques the cultural construction of gender norms as natural, leading to a sense of powerlessness. Bertini strongly attacks Claude Lévi-Strauss's theory of the incest taboo as foundational to society, which she says implies the exchange of women and assigns men alone as subjects. She calls the 'founding prohibition' unfit for emancipating the mind from an aggressive vision of society's foundations. The book's conclusion envisions the exhaustion of values like family, filiation, transmission, and heritage, and the emergence of a new world of networks—digital and otherwise—and virtual communities where gender, codes, and norms are played with. Bertini questions whether society can see the 'extinction of values' as progress and renewal.