Les Péripatéticiennes
The Les Péripatéticiennes collective is a non-profit organization of volunteer feminists who write and illustrate stories on a francophone blog. The goal of this collective is to give the relief to women that they are not alone and to break maladaptive taboos about our very existence. On this blog, we talk about the experiences we live as women in modern society from a personal point of view. The stories tackle relationships, sexuality, body image and sexism in all sorts of situations.
In 2018, the collective contacted me to volunteer as an Illustrator for the blog. I gladly accepted and have been illustrating for them ever since.
Becoming a feminist
As for myself, I wasn’t always a feminist. In my tweens and teens, I tried very hard to abide to the standards we ask women to be up to: shaving, plucking my eyebrows, wearing push-up bras, loosing weight, being a people pleaser... Although, these things didn't necessarily make me feel better about myself as I was just trying to fit in by imitating other women. The presence of feminism on social media greatly inspired me to stop trying so hard to follow these standards.
At the same time, the #metoo movement and my own experiences as a young woman taught me that women’s rights and reputation was still at stake in our society. What I didn’t know though, was how I could have an impact as a feminist. Luckily, being part of Les Péripatéticiennes was the perfect opportunity to contribute to this cause that is so important to me.
Here are some of my first illustrations for the blog:
Being part of the blog also helped me evolve as an illustrator by challenging me to represent the stories in one single illustration. I developed my own style for the blog too, using traditional and digital drawing as well as photo-editing.
The Book
"Ce Qu'On Aurait Aimé Comprendre Plus Tôt" is a collection of texts from the blog in the form of a book. It contains 12 sections of different topics with scientific vulgarizations of different concepts. For this book, I illustrated more than 12 stories and co-designed the cover page.
My contributions to the "Femmes Inspirantes" Project.
In 2020, Les Péripatéticiennes created a project called “femmes inspirantes” about the contribution of women in Canada’s history.