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L'objectif de l'auteur est de réfléchir à la position politique paradoxale et
problématique qu'occupe l'homme proféministe dans son rapport aux femmes en général et aux
féministes en particulier. Après avoir rappelé très brièvement quelques problèmes associés à
l'engagement malheureux d'hommes proféministes à la fin du XIXe siècle et au XXe siècle, l'auteur montrera, dans une perspective
féministe radicale matérialiste (Christine Delphy), que les hommes, même les mieux
intentionnés, sont toujours privilégiés en tant que mâle. Il proposera conséquemment que les
hommes proféministes s'engagent dans un processus de disempowerment. En reprenant la distinction entre le « pouvoir sur » (pouvoir de
domination) et le « pouvoir de » (pouvoir d'agir), l'auteur clarifiera ce qu'il entend par
disempowerment, soit un processus par lequel des
hommes devraient travailler individuellement et collectivement à limiter le pouvoir qu'ils
exercent sur les femmes et les féministes. Il rappellera enfin que, malgré leurs bonnes
intentions, l'engagement des hommes proféministes recèle toujours un potentiel problématique
pour des féministes et que c'est le rapport de force créé et entretenu par des féministes
qui pousse des hommes à se dire proféministes et qui limite les effets négatifs de leur
engagement.

Samuel Huntington proclaimed in an already well-known article ("Clash of Civilizations?") that deep incompatibilities between great civilizations will be the primary cause of future international conflicts. Conflicts will be cultural rather than economic or ideological. To test the validity of this claim, I analyse an international conflict which is truly cultural : the "Salman Rushdie Affair". This affair was provoked by the publication of Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses. By studying the motives of the actors in this event (the novelist Salman Rushdie, the imam Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini and the politician Margaret Thatcher), it seems at first sight that they were driven by political or financial interests. But a closer analysis shows that these actors were directed by cultural motivations. Does this prove that Huntington's thesis is right ? No, since even if the actors tried to defend a vision of their culture, there is no such a thing as monolithical civilizations but rather, there are only multicultural civilizations. Indeed, many people from the West refused to defend Rushdie, many Muslims condemned Khomeini's fatwa and Thatcher promoted only one aspect of Western political culture. Values are transnational and an Iranian may cherish the same values as an inhabitant of New York, while, on the other hand two Londonners living in the same flat dream about killing the other over the abortion issue.

Comparing France and the United States, I propose a general model for assessing the birth of pro-democratic discourse. I first explain why founders of the modern 'democracies' were openly and vehemently anti-democratic. Next, I focus on two types of situation where the word 'democracy' is used on the political stage – when political actors want to distinguish themselves from their opponents and when political actors want to sanctify the political regime. The first case covers three specific modes of the use of the term 'democracy': (i) distinguishing oneself negatively by discrediting the opponent (the term 'democracy' is pejorative and associated with the 'enemy'); (ii) distinguishing oneself positively by asserting one's worthiness (the term 'democracy' is positive and associated with 'us'); (iii) fighting for an exclusive claim to the term in order to set oneself apart (several camps proclaim themselves 'democrat' and mutually accuse each other of usurping or even 'stealing' the title). I conclude that the use of the word 'democracy' generally results from a single motivation – to increase one's own political power or to diminish the power of one's opponents.

Whether the Iranian banning of Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" and British condemning of this action was a political or cultural conflict. Summary in English.