The meetings Tupperware are they a means to communicate ideas and practices of feminists ? This has been discovered Catherine Achin and Delphine Naudier in their article ” liberation by Tupperware ? Dissemination of the ideas and practices of feminists in new spaces of sociability of women “, Clio, n°29, 2009, by conducting a survey of oral history on the impact of May ‘ 68 with women of all social backgrounds living in a medium-sized town of the province in the 1970s.
The meetings Tupperware are characteristic : moderated by a presenter, who is engaged by the company Tupperware in the home of a hostess who has invited friends for the occasion, they are the occasion of the presentation of new products and the sale of the latter. If the meeting objective is the sale of Tupperware, it summarises not only this. The meeting devoted to the sale of the products, Tupperware, double a meeting between women, where they discuss their husbands, their children… during the decade of 70, these meetings are an opportunity for the participants to compare their living conditions with the other women present, but also with the presenters Tupperware.
The presenters Tupperware that expose the products in a “hostess” for the most of married women from middle class or popular, often without a diploma high. Their use, has opened up the lines of financial autonomy and at meetings, they ” help build the standard of a female model, independent and mistress of her own fertility “. They are the propagatrices of feminist views. Providing advice, disseminating information on contraception, divorce, on the possibility of exercising a professional activity for women, etc, they have a role emancipatory to women who attend their meetings.
Through them, the meeting functions as a space of speaking, a valve in the shelter of the cell, conjugal and family. It is often, although not politicized, “the place of the first experience of” group of women “”. Hence, they allow some women to transgress gradually the social relations of sex, and function as spaces of socialization of women, which aired the standards of autonomy and empowerment among women from modest background.