If you happen to Google the term “public academic” and the name of Queen’s Law doctoral student Marie-Emmanuelle Genesse pops up on your screen, don’t be surprised. By definition, a public academic is a scholar who engages in discussions of public affairs. Genesse does that. In spades. 

“I see a public academic as someone who’s a high achiever and wants to spread their knowledge to the whole world,” she says. “For me, democratizing my research means making my expertise available to those who aren’t immersed in academia.” 

Even as Genesse is busy working on a thesis that explores issues involved in the laws related to domestic violence and public health, she’s also continuing to build on her earlier academic and activist initiatives. Those focus on intimate partner violence and gender equality. 

Marie-Emmanuelle and her older sister Florence-Olivia, who’s a doctoral student at Durham University in England, are influential social-media personalities with a prominent presence both on Instagram and TikTok (@the.sisofficial), the latter in particular. “We’ve been able to create a worldwide community of almost half a million followers in total,” says Genesse.

The educational video messages the sisters have been posting on their TikTok feminist advocacy platform “The Sis,” which has almost 349,000 followers, have had a profound impact on human rights issues and on the lives of women and girls everywhere. Their efforts to publicize the “Signal for Help” – a 2020 one-hand gesture created by Canadian Women’s Foundation that anyone who’s at risk of being abused can flash – so far have saved the lives of at least two women. That accomplishment has drawn huge media attention and generated more than 1,800 news stories that reached a potential audience that’s estimated at 1.1 billion people. What’s more, Marie-Emmanuelle and Florence-Olivia have collaborated on various initiatives with such diverse organizations as United Nations Women, Plan International, and government and non-governmental agencies worldwide. The truly amazing thing about all this is that it has happened in just the last three years. 

The Genesse sisters launched The Sis during the COVID pandemic, while they were spending time at their family’s home in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Both women are trained dancers, and like many TikTokers, they began creating and posting short, lighthearted dance videos. Initially, they did that just for the fun of it. But one thing inevitably led to another, and they soon began posting more serious material. Videos with messages.

“This came about quite naturally,” Marie-Emmanuelle Genesse recalls. “My higher studies were progressing and during the lockdown my sister and I decided to start sharing online because it was the easiest convenient way to reach a lot of people, and also because of the surge in violence against women that was happening during the lockdown.

“My mother had always shown to us that women and men were equal, and I think coming into high school I had a shock of really seeing how society was treating boys and girls differently and creating inequalities that would lead to bigger issues and violence. At university, I minored in social justice and philosophy. That helped me to develop the critical mindset to think that what I was seeing in society had to be changed. It became my goal to be a part of that social and legal change. Now, seeing how prevalent violence against women is in daily life – we see femicide and sexual violence headlines almost every day – I knew that a PhD in law was the best path for me to advance women’s rights and security.”

Having made that transformative decision, Genesse says she opted to pursue doctoral studies at Queen’s Law for a couple of reasons. One was the opportunity to study with Professor Lisa Kelly, who’s a nationally known authority on the intersections of criminal and family laws. The other was the academic excellence of Queen’s University and of Queen’s Law. 

“The university has an incredible reputation for its academic rigor and for the opportunities it accords graduate students. That’s especially true of Queen’s Law. The graduate program here is exactly what I wanted because of my double duties as a researcher and a public figure and consultant,” explains Genesse. 

Going forward, she’s hopeful that her academic work will provide her with opportunities to make positive differences in the laws and policies surrounding domestic violence and violence against women. “I want to do all I can to educate as many people as possible and help to eradicate violence against women in Canada and around the world. These are two big goals, but I believe they’re realistic. I’ve already seen the impact I can have by discussing these issues and raising awareness around them,” Genesse says.

“I think a way for me to see that I’m continuing to make a difference for gender equality is by seeing my online community grow, by sharing my expertise via the media, and by seeing that people care. I know many people want to help, but sometimes they just don’t know how to do it.

“I also see that same eagerness to learn when I’m asked to give talks to new police officers, or to educate social workers on certain issues. These are steps that encourage me because when I see that when there’s information available to people, there can be a lot of positive change.”

By Ken Cuthbertson, Law’83