Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan Curate 4th Annual Festival Albertine

From November 1-5, Albertine Books, the French Embassy's acclaimed bookshop and cultural hub, will host their first-ever public festival aimed at advancing dialogue between leading female thinkers and artists in the U.S. and France.

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and Albertine Books, the dynamic bookshop and cultural center operated by the French Embassy in New York, are pleased to announce that pioneering feminist writers and activists Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan are the curators of the fourth annual Festival Albertine.

For the five-day free public event, Steinem and Morgan have invited a diversity of organizers, artists, writers, scholars, politicians, religious leaders and journalists -- a lineup spanning cultures, generations and areas of expertise -- not simply to explore the obstacles confronting women, but to "dare to dream of change and of a legitimate equality between women and men."

Discussions will feature Roxane Gay, Cecile Richards, Elizabeth Diller, Christiane Taubira, Guerrilla Girls, Laure Adler, Houda Benyamina, Robin Coste Lewis, Marie Darrieussecq, Marie de Cenival, Caroline de Haas, Anne Garr�ta, Soraya Chemaly, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Delphine Horvilleur, Daisy Khan, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Heidi Steltzer, Wassyla Tamzali, Lauren Wolfe and others.

"Just as there can be no deep social change without the arts, there can be no shift without dialogue; no action without the words to incite it in our minds," say Steinem and Morgan.

For Steinem and Morgan, Festival Albertine 2017 is an opportunity to realize, in person and public, a vital exchange of ideas between leading female thinkers and artists in the U.S. and France. The event is a timely new iteration of a longstanding and mutually-energizing dialogue that stretches back to the mid-20th Century, when Simone de Beauvoir published her groundbreaking 1949 book "The Second Sex," having traveled across the United States for four months in 1947; and Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" debuted in 1963, inspiring the establishment of the National Organization for Women.

In 1972, Ms. magazine's historic inaugural cover story, "We Had Abortions," followed the example of French feminists who had signed a petition demanding abortion's decriminalization. In 1984, de Beauvoir and Morgan joined forces to cofound the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, the first international feminist think tank.

While the U.S. and France have long produced some of the most influential feminist thinkers and still do, their sometimes diverging perspectives on questions surrounding issues such as religion, childcare, and work-life balance, together with their commonalities, will offer material for fruitful debate.

"In all our diversity on both sides of the Atlantic, today perhaps more than ever before, women are experiencing the double jeopardy of sex and race, the need for and resistance to political representation, the challenges of old and new media, workplace and parenting inequality, gendered daily violence plus a very gendered terrorism, religious extremism versus spirituality, and the gendered plus universal danger of global warming," they explain.

According to the curators, this international conversation is as urgent as ever. "The future of all of us on this small blue planet depends on making these connections between subjects now seen as unconnected. The human race is a bird with two wings. If one is broken, the bird cannot fly."

Among the speakers addressing these concerns in this year's festival are Laure Adler, journalist, author and cultural adviser to the late French President Fran�ois Mitterrand; award-winning film director and screenwriter Houda Benyamina; ;writer, media critic and activist Soraya Chemaly; spoken-word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist Staceyann Chin, journalist and a writer Mona Chollet; National Book Award-winning poet Robin Coste Lewis; author, playwright and Charlie Hebdo contributor Marie Darrieussecq; Act Up activist and co-founder of the radical feminist action group La Barbe, Marie de Cenival;activist and politician Caroline de Haas; Diller Scofidio + Renfro founding partner Elizabeth Diller; Roxane Gay author of "Difficult Women" and "Bad Feminist," and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times; novelist Anne Garr�ta; Annie Laurie Gaylor,co-founder and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; the "feminist masked avengers" Guerrilla Girls; journalist and rabbi Delphine Horvilleur; Daisy Khan, Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE); Arts Director of the Monnaie de Paris Camille Morineau; playwright and lawyer specializing in the sovereignty of Native tribes and peoples Mary Kathryn Nagle; environmental scientist Heidi Steltzer; American pro-choice activist and president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Cecile Richards; Algerian lawyer, author and former director of Women's Rights at UNESCO Wassyla Tamzali; Christiane Taubira, former Justice Minister of France; journalist and Women Under Siege director Lauren Wolfe; and others.

B�n�dicte de Montlaur, Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in the United States, says of this year's festival, "France and the US have a long history of rich intellectual exchange around issues of feminism and have led the world in the fight for women's rights. At the same time, both countries are among the few Western democracies that have yet to elect a female head-of-state. Although great strides have been made, gender equality remains at the forefront of our public conversations in France, the US and around the world. The time has come to take stock. This year's Festival Albertine, curated by Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan asks some of the most interesting French and American voices from diverse disciplines to engage in a rare and vital dialogue, working towards a renewed vision of feminism today and outlining what an egalitarian future could be."

Festival Albertine 2017 will take place at Albertine Books (972 Fifth Avenue). This program is presented in conjunction with Festival Albertine 2017, an annual series of conversations produced by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and Albertine Books that invite French and American authors, artists, scholars, and activists to explore current issues from French and American perspectives.