The stigma of ‘Féminisme’ and the French #MeToo movement
While many forms of gender disparity advances have different histories of permeating into various societies, it was the French utopian socialist philosopher Charles Fourier who invented and coined the term féminisme, in 1837. He was a self-described women’s rights advocate of the time and was progressive in regards to female sexuality, believing that the bourgeoisie form of marriage was oppressive. While he philosophized that women should be sexually unrestrained and free, he did not believe that women should vote (French women did not get the vote until 1945) or be in the political sphere at all.
While no country has achieved a completely gender-equal society, mainstream France is struggling with its ability to observe its inequality, as it is especially culturally and historically pervasive. There is a combination of a culture of romance, with a system that creates a taboo around classical feminist language — i.e. using the terms feminism and patriarchy.
This creates what is perceived as a consistently sex-positive outlook, which is not usually found in characteristically anti-feminist countries. This attitude permeates into the political sphere in a very particular way.
“Life is much more sexualized in France” said Bonnie Anderson, professor of international feminism, women’s history, and sexuality at City University of New York, as she described a time a doctor flirted with her in France while he was taking blood from her knee. “This is the basis of why traditionally, and perhaps today, feminism in France is considered Anglo-Saxon and sexless. Feminists are old maids, they’re ugly, and mostly, they don’t want sex”.
A few weeks ago, President Macron made a speech in Paris where he explained he would put gender issues at the forefront of his agenda. Referencing the domestic violence statistic that one French woman is killed every three days by her current or former partner, he said, “France must no longer be one of those countries where women are afraid”. Of the 225,000 women who were the victims of violence in France last year, less than one in five pressed charges, according to UN statistics.
Macron has also taken steps to ensure gender parity in his cabinet, as well as implement gender quotas for other areas of the government.
Macron’s apparent push toward feminist ideals, both in his government and policy agenda have been in parallel with a the larger #MeToo social movement. It has been adopted in France as #BalanceTonPorc or “expose your pig”, started by French journalist Sandra Muller in which she tweeted her own experience with a man who told her “You have big breasts. You are my type of woman. I will make you orgasm all night.”
While there seem to be both political and social strides for women in France, there are still many discriminatory policies that Macron has yet to address as anti-feminist.
“Despite borrowing some feminist vocabulary, the President is far from conceiving a society that is not systematically constructed by social relations of sex” said Rejane Senac, a French political scientist involved in gender research, in her article for Libération. “There is contradiction between the stated ambition and the lack of new means to strengthen public action, this also raises the question of the political meaning given to gender equality.”
Feminist discourse rarely makes its way into policy making, because on the mainstream level, feminist is not a common, or even acceptable term.
“The bad PR has won, and it goes all the way back to the French revolution and enlightenment” said Carolyn Eichner a women and gender in modern France professor at University of Wisconsin.
“The hostility to the word itself was enormous during the first women’s right movement and somehow women who self-identity as feminists are betraying or transgressing those old rules. The historical or cultural investment between clear differences between men and women are romanticized now, and that tends to mask political inequities”
The French concept of ‘galanterie’, similar to the concept of chivalry in English, is a large part of where the anti-feminism culture derives from, as people see galanterie as at completely at odds with it. It is considered a form of savoir-vivre that is crucial to French culture, and threatened by radical women.
“I mean yes, I would consider myself a feminist,” said Claire d’Ayguesvives, a 23-year-old finance student at Sciences Po in Paris. “Because there’s stuff women should stand up for, and yes I am in favor of changing the way French society sees women and men. But I would never actually call myself a feminist, because people would just say ‘oh, you’re just a little woman fighting for her rights.’ The thing is, when I pass through a door, I like it when men hold it for me.”
When people are unable to relinquish cultural norms, they may seep into politics in the form of sexist laws.
The Passively Soliciting law, for example, which aims to crack down on prostitution, criminalizes women who are “wearing skimpy clothes.”
There has been a consistent reluctance by the French government to define an age of consent. The most recent cases being one where a 28-year-old men had sex with an 11-year-old girl. The law largely protected the right to have sex, over the rights and safety of an extremely young person.
Macron also recently removed significant labor laws, the consequences of which women will endure the most, as jobs will become more precarious for women. It will be harder to check the enforcement of gender equality, and gender quotas in companies.
One of the most obvious policy problems the French government is having is regarding laws and awareness of sexual harassment and abuse. Joan Wallace Scott, a renowned American historian of France famously said it all has to do with the French understanding of seduction, and “seduction is the alternative to thinking about it as sexual harassment.”
Addressing Macron’s latest speech, Pomeline Tauziat, an activist at the French organization Osez le Féminisme, or Dare Feminism, said “There would be many things to say about Macron’s political program for women’s rights, but the main thing is that is invisible! He mentioned several times the cause of women but he hasn’t really done much, expect give speeches.”
Caroline De Haas, a prominent French activist and feminist, explains that if Macron decides to use feminist discourse in the political realm he will break the “illusion of equality” that is so prevalent in France.
“People have the impression we live in an equal country, they say ‘Oh my God, chill out you live in France, you’re in the west, you have equal rights now!’ Mort de rire.”
