It's raining machismo in France
It's raining machismo in France. Chucking it down, in fact. From parliament to local councils, via national media and regional newspapers, storms have erupted as French men indulge in misogynist outbursts that could have come from the cave age. Now, thanks to the name-and-shame tactics of social media networks, France's long-suffering women, who might previously have shrugged off such attacks as everyday sexism & machismo, are hitting back.
The backlash came after a banal enough event: a male member of the UMP opposition in the Assemblée Nationale humiliated a female opponent by making clucking noises as she spoke during a late-night debate on the Socialist government's controversial pension reforms. The noise suggested she was a poule, an insult that can be translated as bird, but conveys in French a woman who is, among other things, an airhead. The man had apparently returned to the house of parliament after a "well-oiled" dinner with male colleagues who were laughing and egging him on.
Véronique Massonneau, who was speaking at the time and was the subject of the insult, insisted the fowl noises stop. Philippe Le Ray, the MP making them, carried on, until the furious speaker of the house called for an adjournment for tempers to cool. "He was a complete idiot. He just kept on making these animal sounds, even after he was asked to stop," Massonneau told the Guardian. "During the suspension I went over to where he was sitting and asked him why he was being such an idiot. He didn't reply. He was clearly, how can I say, uninhibited." The parliamentary session resumed and there the matter might have rested, as so many have before.
The newly appointed housing minister, Cécile Duflot, of Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), has also been the target of sexist behaviour. She was lambasted by centre-right female MPs for "lacking respect" by wearing jeans for her first cabinet meeting, then jeered and wolf-whistled in the Assemblée National when she turned up in a flowered dress. Duflot told the Guardian she was shocked and surprised at the "mediocrity" of the behaviour.
"To be honest, I found it quite incredible that this was the level of behaviour. But the reaction that there has been has shown that sexism is not acceptable. "I think the political milieu is behind society on these things. In real life, it would be hard to imagine that a woman in business would be treated as a poule when she spoke."
Former sports minister Chantal Jouanno, then a UMP member, has claimed she was subjected to smutty comments whenever she wore a skirt to parliamentary sessions. Female ministers have become used to being asked about their hair and makeup, often by female television and radio presenters.
However, something about Poulegate captured the public imagination. The following day a group of mainly leftwing female MPs decided to arrive late for the sitting as a mark of solidarity. The opposition UMP accused them of using "theatrics", and staged their own walkout. "The invective and insults I suffered were no worse than normal, but it symbolised a general fed-up-ness at the way women are treated. The moment was badly chosen. We were discussing a serious subject, pensions, that concerns everyone and he did that," said Massonneau. "If it is about what I am saying, or someone disagrees with me, I have no problem with that at all. It's different when it's about physical looks, dress, or way of speaking just because you are a woman."
Le Ray, 45, apologised and was fined one quarter of his monthly salary – a rarely used, thus symbolic, penalty. A few days later, Éric Zemmour, a writer and political journalist, went on France's equivalent of Radio Four's Today programme, on France Inter, to discuss the incident and dismissed sexism as "feminist nonsense". He also suggested women had slept their way into parliament. "How did women get into the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat? … By laws of parity that forced people to put them on [voting] lists … and they put friends, women, mistresses, etc."
Then Bernard Ronsin, conseiller général of the canton of Crécy-sur-Serre in the Aisne, made clear he was vehemently opposed to the law making gender parity in local election lists obligatory from 2015. "Parity, it's bullshit," Ronsin told his local newspaper. "We're going to force women to go into politics when they don't necessarily want to. In my profession [blacksmith], I deal with more and more women. There are some who are very competent, but they ruin our lives. They'd be better off with pans making jam.".. read more:
