Innovation

The Fusée is one of the few consultancy companies that specializes in auditing the issue of gender equality in the professional world. It’s innovative for three different reasons : for its tailor-made services, for its playful approach to the theme and finally for its interactive and concrete approach.

The Fusée offers tailor-made services for its customers so that every company can be satisfied, and can overcome its own gender dysfunctions. It’s targeted to the need of the company.

It proposes playful training, and uses humor to make its message reach everyone, even the most reluctant persons. There are different playful tools that the Fusée uses for its training. Sophie Truchot-Barret, presented us the "Medicamentix”: a role-play created by Sophie and Renaud to raise awareness about gender-based violence: you become a pharmacist and choose the right medicine for each sexist and sexual violence. The names chosen for the medications are word games that refer to the problematic behavior of certain individuals: for example the ”lourdex” medication. "Lourd" means insistent and represents a person who behaves inappropriately with another person. The use of this medication will therefore be the remedy against an insistent behavior in the professional world.

The services of the Fusée are interactive. In fact, it wants to make employees and managers actors of their own training. Therefore, the Fusée proposes some group activities which require an active participation from participants. It also puts forward some role play scenarios where men have to take the place of women in order to realize dysfunctions in the company or in the school. A test is given at the beginning and at the end of the course, so as they can see how much they have learned.

Inspiration

Sophie Truchot-Barret herself experienced gender inequalities at her work and didn’t escape from the gender stereotypes as a child. She is determined not to accept being determined by them. It’s why she decided to commit herself to end gender discriminations as the core of her professional activity by creating her own consultancy firm on the subject. She wants to act in a concrete way, on a daily basis, to ensure that the workplace is safer and more inclusive for all. In this ideal professional world “...we don’t have to specify whether we are a man or a woman, because it’s simply our professional skills that are taken into account”, as Sophie Truchot-Barret specifies.

She highlights the struggle of some women such as Megan Rapinoe for her fight for equal pay for male and female soccer players. She appreciates her because, “She really tries to make things change by acting directly on the ground,” however she admits to being more inspired by her closer friends and her family.

Sophie Truchot-Barret shared with us some YouTube channels that inspire her. She encouraged us to discover different YouTube videos such as, "it's Illogical" or "la mécanique sexiste" video (the sexist mechanic in english). "It's illogical" shows short videos in English that highlight everything that it is not logical about sexual assault and harassment. For instance, that one cannot touch a work of art in a museum because it's forbidden, then how to explain the fact that there are cases of sexual assaults when it's forbidden by the law. The other video "la mécanique sexiste" is a french video which allows a better understanding of sexism, its origins and above all how serious it is, by showing the consequences that it can have. She also shared with us some Instagram accounts that she personally follows such as the french accounts "Femquotidien" and "Sans Blanc de Rien", "Whythefeminisme" which has a lot of data about the subject, or "Period.studio" which is more widely known. Sophie Truchot-Barret and her partner Renaud have also created their own account, "Whythefeminisme" which has a lot of data about the subject.

Overall impact

The activities of the Fusée, and its training about gender discriminations have a direct impact on an important amount of actors. It affects a lot of companies in different sectors such as Bouygues Telecom, Airbus, KissKissBankBank or even RATP Group. There are companies with a large mixed workforce. For instance, Airbus has 48,000 employees in France. The Fusée services do not directly affect all employees, but even reaching a smaller number of company members can be successful in changing mindsets over the long term.

Furthermore, the activities of the Fusée also affect french education because Sophie Truchot-Barret and her partner Renaud have given conferences and awareness workshops in a lot of schools such as Paris Dauphine, ENS, Paris Saclay and many others. The objective is to raise awareness among both students and teachers. The message of the Fusée aims at an audience that can range from 80 to 190 students. Sophie Truchot-Barret suggests making these sensitizations mandatory, "Otherwise the students don't necessarily come, and only the students who are already very aware of the subject attend".

Finally, the awareness given by the fusée has all the more impact with its customers as it is not an association or an activist movement. Sophie Truchot-Barret clearly states that, “we don’t create an association or an activist movement even if obviously we believe in that fight, to make our activities as concrete as possible”. This approach is efficient because companies are more open to receiving awareness and training when it is not in a political way.

Business benefit

The Fusée was created and began its activities in the midst of the Covid pandemic, so it’s not a perfect environment to have the best economic growth, and despite this context, it has experienced a period of growth. It adapted to the global context, and offered conferences and distance learning courses to its customers.

The first year of its activities the Fusée received 14,000 euros, and the following year 27,000 euros. It is a very positive point and it is promising for the continuation of its development in the future. This growth in income illustrates a demand from companies and educational institutions to be sensitized and trained in the theme of gender equality. This issue of gender inequality in the workplace is increasingly taken seriously by companies for various reasons, including economic ones: to harmonize relations between employees, which allow them to work more efficiently, and also to convey a positive image to consumers. We can therefore assume that the demand for consulting firms specialized in this field will increase, and that "the Fusée" will surely benefit from it.

The Fusée aspires to expand. It wants to extend its awareness and trainings to other types of discriminations, because as said Sophie Truchot-Barret said, "There is still a lot of inequalities to fight in addition to those concerning gender".

Social and environmental benefit

This consultancy firm participates in the construction of a better society, where there is less gender discrimination. Indeed, to share this training in school to the new generations enable new mentalities in society. The Fusée offers its service with some well known universities and schools such as ENS, Paris Dauphine, Science Po Lille, Science Po Toulouse, Mines Paris Tech, Paris Saclay. This involves a large number of students, insofar as, for example, the University of Paris Dauphine has 9,4000 students and Science Po Lille has over 2,000 students. To target the youth is really important because as Sophie Truchot-Barret highlights, “Universities and schools are the organizations which prepare future employees and future managers”. She would like to intervene at even younger age, like in primary school because the sooner we raise awareness the youth on that topic, the more they will be conscious of discriminations. To sensitize youth, the Fusée proposes conferences and working groups.

Furthermore, we can say that this innovation enables people to realize that they can take part in an economic activity which is useful for our society by dedicating their professional life to defend values that are dear to them. Sophie Truchot-Barret added, “We are more efficient when we do something that we believe in”.

Interview

Sophie Truchot-Barret, Co-fondatrice de la fusée