French gallantry sidelines women in MeToo era, claims professor
A NEW book has re-ignited a fraught debate in France over whether gallantry is a “brilliant but poisonous myth” that must be jettisoned a year after #MeToo or a treasured Gallic exception that is the envy of the world.
Gallantry, which first appeared in France in the mid-17th century as a code of conduct between the sexes in high society, may have provided subservient women with a modicum of empowerment at the time but its legacy is perpetuating gender inequality.
That is the view of Laure Murat, a French professor at the University of California in Los Angeles in her book A Sexual Revolution, Post-Weinstein Reflections, written in response to the rape scandal involving Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Ms Murat described the concept of gallantry as a “screen” that has helped keep sexual relations in the Dark Ages.
She was backed by French historian Michelle Perrot, who told France Culture that the country was “poisoned by this idea of gallantry”.
“I think it is a myth, which relies on a particular type of domination of men over women. ‘I open the door for you and give you flowers’ is always a way of sidelining women,” she said.
These views sparked a torrent of angry, sometimes abusive reactions on social media – from women as well as men. One, called Esmeralda, said: “I want to be offered flowers, chocolates, have the door held open for me and all such things that make me feel good.”
There are tentative signs of change, however, writes Ms Murat. The first tremor was after the 2011 sex scandal involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the ex-International Monetary Fund chief – who was charged and later acquitted of rape. Shockingly, Ms Murat says, many French politicians and intellectuals justified DSK’s behaviour as that of a “libertine”, a gallant “man who loves women”.
Then came the Weinstein affair. While it sparked soul-searching and the #MeToo movement in America, Ms Murat expressed surprise at the “weakness of the debate in France” where an obsession with erring towards “American Puritanism” prompted a string of high-profile French women including actress Catherine Deneuve to defend men’s right to “hit on” women.
Some 200 feminists hit back in Mediapart, accusing Deneuve et al of turning the “victims into executioners”.
Since then, France has passed a law making street harassment punishable by fines of up to €750 (£660).
Ms Murat said that there may be no turning back after Weinstein, as for the first time it exposed a “global awareness” of male sexual harassment.
As for gallantry, Frédéric Taddeï, editor of Lui, said: “Of course there is prostitution, machismo, harassment, but the French believe that seduction trumps all and can save us. That is deeply rooted in our mentality.”