French feminists rule: US women fall behind

US politicians try to control women's bodies instead of economic policies.

by Jody Dallaire

Many of us who care about social justice and women’s rights have learned in the last few years to look elsewhere than the United States for inspiration – even to look away from the US to avoid despair.  Indeed, the only country that leads more quickly to despair on those issues may be Afghanistan.  As someone asked recently, have the Taliban won the war and taken over the United States?

Look rather to Europe. France has interesting things happening, even though for decades, French women have been mild in their analysis and their tactics. But France has had a feminist awakening that is heartening to see.

It helps that a socialist government, with many strong female ministers, was elected earlier this year. But the awakening started before that election. The women’s rights mood also proceeded, but was boosted by, the Dominique Strauss Kahn sex scandal and the scandalous way French media and society, among others, reacted to it.

When a superior court abolished the sexual harassment law in France this spring (“too vague”), women were in the streets the next day laying complaints with the authorities for “failure to assist a person in need”.  A new law was introduced last month.

The new government, which has an equal number female and male ministers, also created a Department of Women’s Rights and last month began requiring that,before proposing any law, any department must conduct – and make public — analysis of the impact on equality between the sexes, to ensure they are not worsening the inequality gap and are seizing opportunities to improve the situation.

Departments are also asked to have 40 percent females in all high level bureaucratic positions in five years. The country is looking to adopt the Nordic solution to abolish prostitution by criminalizing the buyer of sex.

And the women’s groups are having fun.  La Barbe – meaning the beard, and colloquially, “enough is enough” — makes its point and makes headlines regularly. Its members, women, wear beards to make surprise appearances in male-dominated "sites of power" (National Assembly, shareholder meetings, television studios, Cannes Film festival), where one of them reads an ironic statement praising the men on their supremacy. 

One group that promises “No peace if there is no justice” invited women to list “reasons why I didn’t lay a complaint” after a sexual assault, which attracted many contributions and media attention.  Another group, Osez le Féminisme, with dozens of chapters around the country, launched a “sexisme ordinaire” list with women contributing examples of sexism.

Which brings us to the United States, where Ann Romney, wife of a presidential candidate, said at the Republican convention recently that the daily injustices women face are, well, how things are.

“It's how it is, isn't it? It's the moms who always have to work a little harder… You know it's true, don't you? You're the ones who always have to do a little more. You know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work…”
That’s “ordinary sexism” but it’s all right, she said.

In the last year in the United States, including in the current national election campaign, women’s sexuality (let alone women’s rights) seems at times to be the main concern of politicians. Nothing seems more important to some regional and national politicians than making sure women do not have sex — that if they do, they do it to procreate and not use contraception — and if they get pregnant, even if from rape, they don’t end their pregnancy.  

Hillary Clinton said recently: “Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn‘t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They all want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies.”  She wasn’t talking specifically of the United States but she could have been.

Some states want to ban contraception, and presidential candidate Romney will not say he would stop them. Conservatives in that country are bent on cutting off all funds to Planned Parenthood, even for breast cancer screening, because the organization “facilitates abortions”.  

An all-male Republican panel on birth control this year refused to include even one woman as a witness. Sandra Fluke, a law student who later spoke to defend the idea of including contraception in health coverage, was subjected to Rush Limbaugh's full wrath, starting with calling her a slut. In several states, women are forced to have an ultrasound for non-medical reasons before they may have an abortion, a law whose purpose is to pressure women to change their mind. Some states now require doctors to give women information that is known to be scientifically false, such that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Recently the Democratic convention included several women in a roster of speakers. One CNN commentator tried to dismiss the event as 'The Vagina Monologues'.  Speaking of which, a female politician in the Michigan Legislature was recently silenced after she used the word vagina. One Republican legislator said "What she said was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women." She replied, "If I can't say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas?"

And last month, Todd Akins, a Missouri Senatorial candidate, said that women don’t often get pregnant from rape because their body fights off that kind of sperm. He added that he was talking about “legitimate" rape…

Conclusion: for useful news on women’s equality, look elsewhere than the United States.
 

© Copyright 2012 Jody Dallaire, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca