Key events in September/World Beard Day: What’s happening?

HIBAPRESS-RABAT-JM

A world day dedicated to the beard? This is a day of Anglo-Saxon origin and is traditionally set for the first Saturday of September.

In the beginning were the Vikings

The idea of ​​Beard Day is traced back to the Danish Vikings, bearded men whose feast day dates back to around 800 AD (the year of the coronation of Charlemagne, the emperor with the flowery beard…).

The most diverse manifestations

In the south of Spain, Beard Day is celebrated by organizing a boxing match between a bearded man and a beardless man, and the bearded man, armed with a pike, (always) comes out on top.

More radical is the demonstration taking place in the Swedish village of Dönskborg: the non-bearded are banished from the village on the day of the beard festival and must take refuge in the nearby forest while the bearded burn the effigies of their non-bearded relatives…

A snub to the bearded men?

Do you know the beard? This is a feminist action group founded in 2008 in France. Originally, a reaction to the sexist attacks that presidential candidate Ségolène Royal had been the victim of. Its activists denounce the absence or under-representation of women in power.

Heirs of the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s and creators of a new path, they practice activism based on brilliance and irony. They wear false beards during their public actions intended to point out resistance to feminization. Their targets are symbolic and aim to remind us that women are capable of creating, leading and representing as effectively as men and must reach all positions and statuses, in all professions and all instances of public life.