France today—feminine, not feminist

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 12

France today—feminine, not feminist

By

Nancy Kenney

of Associated Press

in Paris

Feminism has failed to capture the popular imagination in France,

even among women themselves. “Feminism is just a lot of froth and foam that has served only to ridicule women. It’s what makes American women so aggressive,” said Alice Saunier-Seite, a former Government Minister for Universities, in an interview. “French women feel better about themselves.”

Photographs of briefcase-toting women dashing through Manhattan in business suits and track shoes make Parisiennes chuckle. One who might fit the category of dashing businesswoman is Francine Gomez, who brought the Waterman Pen Company from the brink of bankruptcy in 1969. She denies doing it with any aggressive business sense.

“I hate business,” she said. “I succeeded because I was creative.

“Women are blessed with dominance in the left side of the brain, which controls imagination. Men are dominated by the right lobe — they’re more logical and practical.”

That analysis is not unusual for French women who underline their feminine qualities and distance themselves from the rhetoric of

women’s rights. They have rarely been segregated socially by men, and their dominance within the home is undisputed. But the effects of the 1802 Napoleonic code giving them the legal status of minors have not

been easily erased. French women were denied the right to vote or hold office until 1944. Contraception was not widely practiced until the 19705. Not a single large French city has a woman mayor. Abortion was legalised in 1975, but it was six years before the law was fully enforced because of doctors’ hostility. French women are in the workplace, but their unemployment rate hovers around 10.7 per cent, 2 per cent higher than men’s, and they remain clustered in traditional careers such as teaching, retail sales and secretarial work.

“The historically male professions which French women have managed to penetrate — 50 per cent of France’s judges are female and one of three medical diplomas is awarded to a woman — have

been terribly devalued in recent

years,” said a lawyer, Nicole Dreyfuss.

“The feminist movement that does exist is plagued by internal squabbling, and the Government of President Francois Mitterrand has provided most of the impetus for change since it came to power four years ago.” Mr Mitterrand elevated the women’s rights administration to a full-fledged Ministiy and increased

its budget tenfold. He also appointed a record six women to cabinet-level posts and instituted other reforms, such as extending Government medical coverage to abortion, financing job training for women, and ordering large businesses to submit data on hiring, promotions and salaries. But a French distaste for confrontation between the sexes ap-

pears to have sabotaged some of the reforms.

When the Women’s Rights Minister, Yvette Roudy, proposed a bill to ban sexist advertising in 1983 — indignantly flashing a nude photo of a singer, Grace Jones, baring her teeth in a cage — she became

a focus of public ridicule. Newspaper attacks were severe and the socialist administration has not mentioned the bill since.

“If you tell a young French woman she’s a sex object, she’ll say to herself, thank goodness,” said Francoise Giroud, co-founder of the news magazine, “L’Express.” “That’s one thing that will never be tossed out.”

A 1983 equal pay law gave unions the power to file sex discrimination suits on behalf of women members, but to date no suits have been filed, according to the Ministry of Women’s Rights. “Filing lawsuits is not a priority for us,” said Chantal Cumunel, an official with the Confederation Generale des Cadres, a union representing women administrators. “Women shy away from them anyway. “You see, in France, a phrase like international women’s day doesn’t go over well. It sounds like international horses’ day,” she said.

“French women do not like to complain because generally they count themselves lucky in contrast to women elsewhere,” said Georgina Dufoix, Minister of Social Affairs.

Laws encouraged by France’s

sagging birth rate allow women to bear children without losing their jobs. They enjoy four-month paid maternity leaves and the possibility of unpaid parental leave of up to two years, with stipends for large families and an internationally praised day-care system for tots.

“This is a good time to be a woman in France,” said Mrs Dufoix, who has four children, “because women are recognised both as mothers and people with careers.”

But the women who land top jobs tend to see themselves as exceptions. “There never will be many women in positions like mine because middle-class women can meet and marry someone who earns enough for two,” said Anne Duthilleul, aged 31, the first woman graduate of France’s selective state graduate engineering school. MS Duthilleul draws up the budget for state scientific research.

Simone Veil, France’s bestknown woman politician, consistently ranks first or second nationally in political popularity polls. She has just announced she is no longer a contender for high office. Mrs Veil, a moderate conservative, has always been realistic about her chances of becoming premier or president. “You know what the French attitude towards women in politics is like,” she told American reporters last year. “I doubt it could happen.” She served as president of the multi-national European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, but is best known for her battle to legalise abortion as Health Minister under President Valery Giscard d’Estaing. The bill won approval only after a bitter parliamentary fight in which an opponent reduced Mrs Veil, an Auschwitz survivor, to tears by asking her if she wanted to send children to the ovens.

“The political battle is horrible for women in France,” said Ms Giroud, who oversaw women’s rights under President Giscard. “From the moment a woman enters it, she’s the victim of every possible insult and calumny.” She points to Edith Cresson, now Minister of Foreign Trade and Industrial Redeployment. Angry farmers pelted the elegant Parisienne with tomatoes and sludge

when she visited a troubled region to explain her policies as Agriculture Minister in 1982.

Mrs Cresson already had been dubbed the woman who liked a fight for braving sexual innuendo and insults in her 1975 bid for a national assembly seat. She lost then, but won eight years later. American feminists say French women never were joiners because they lack the social clubs and civic groups that evolved into women’s power bases in the United States

and Britain. Ms Giroud has another theory on why feminism has failed to penetrate French life. “French women never believed they had the least bit of equality, so they never had the impression they were fooled about themselves. They’ve won little by little through the policies of men. “Now that gives you a different relationship. French men and women understand each other,” shq said. x .