The High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE) has just published its report on the state of sexism in France, and the results are not glorious. Far from there. Expert analysis of equality between women and men.
Women have good access to positions of responsibility and can speak out to denounce abuse (and we are finally listening to them)… Sexism is not abating in France. At least, this is the conclusion of the Supreme Council for Equality (HCE), which published the results of the second “Sexism Barometer” on Monday, January 23. Thus, there are as many women as last year who stated that they personally experienced sexist situations (80%). They mostly take place in “areas perceived as particularly unequal”: the street and transport (57%), the home (49%) or the world of work (46%). Brigitte Gracie, an expert on equality between women and men and former president of the SC, explains: Madame Figaro multiple manifestations of sexism in society.
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Madame Figaro.- Sexism is not decreasing in French society. Is that really a surprise?
Bridget Grace. Alas, no. It must be said that the concept of sexism, which therefore means prohibited actions, has been known for several years in the form of tolerance and blindness. That is what made the hand on the butt a mere provocation. For a long time, people did not put words into action. We didn’t say “this is rape” or “this is sexual assault”. In fact, there was a kind of trivialization and euphemism, but also a denial of the seriousness of these things, which nevertheless always caused suffering.
But at one point, in 2015 to be precise, there was a big breakthrough: in France we defined what sexism is…
France was a pioneer in this matter. It is almost the earliest country in this field. The European Council followed us even after that, in 2019. We defined sexism, but first of all we described it in its various manifestations: sexist humor, impolite… In total, we singled out six. It is clear that we wrote the score, the notes that make up the song. Result: today, decoding is easier to do. Then the fight against sexism entered the business, in particular through the definition of sexist acts in the Rebsamen law. Then other qualifications followed: sexist contempt, acts with sexist connotations in sexual harassment… In other words, the word “sexism” entered the law and speech, which made people aware.
Perhaps more unprecedentedly, the phenomenon worsens among 25-34 year olds. In this age group, 23% of men in particular believe that violence is sometimes necessary for respect (compared to 11% of men overall)…
This is what is quite alarming but fascinating about this barometer. We see that among the young generation there is both a new awareness of what is called gender identity, and at the same time a kind of consolidation of heavy stereotypes that want to somehow be fixed in granite, so-called ancestral behavior.
Sexism is much harder to mask than it used to be
Bridget Grace
Shouldn’t these new HRD figures be viewed in terms of how everyone today is more aware of casual sexism and therefore more inclined to condemn them than in the past?
This is the problem with all barometers, especially “feelings”: the more people are given the tools to identify a phenomenon, the more they condemn it and the more the numbers go up. But what we’re seeing in this new HCE report is that sexism is taking a different form, it’s adapting. It is like soft dough, when it falls on one beak, it rises elsewhere. Today, as we clearly see, sexism undergoes mutation and has new features. Admittedly, we are more aware of the phenomenon, but it is constantly being hidden, and its detection requires extreme vigilance.
How does he express himself now?
Unmasking him is much more difficult than before. It is more or less insidious, more or less hostile. Until the big launch of dedicated public policy in the late 1980s, sexism was downright hostile. “Women can’t drive”, “they are bad at math, bad at sports”… But in some ways it was quite easy to answer. And then came the public policies of equality, and with them came “we can’t say this anymore”. This is where sexism becomes more insidious, subtle and even “charitable”. For example, we talk about female leadership being “warmer”, more empathetic, while skills have no gender.
Are women similarly equipped to respond to them?
No, and for that we must always ensure that we work on both levels, individually and collectively. Some women are targeted more because of their gender identity, age, social status… They accept the “whole face” without many tools to respond. A forty-year-old single mother who works for a company does not necessarily have the same skills as a young independent woman who is a manager and who has time to attend conferences on feminism.
For many men, quotas are unacceptable and favor the incompetent
Bridget Grace
HRC is also concerned about the phenomenon opposition(opposition) everywhere in the workplace,” with “masculine attacks” on social media to “silence or discredit women.” Why such “reflexes”? Are they news?
Masculinity (1) was already there. We saw her demonstrations in Quebec and we saw these men who refuse to allow women to gain power and who don’t want society to progress. Why First, there is an increase in women’s discourse that some men find intolerable; and then there is the fear of seeing the best positions occupied by women, the fear of being expelled from the family, because since these men have never been at home, the children have acquired the habit of not seeing their fathers… For many men, quotas are unacceptable and favor incompetent women; In short, many still cling to and reinforce ancient beliefs, those who were fed sexism in the schoolyard. Moreover, their observation is reinforced by new tools: social networks, the system of revenge and the violent use of pornography. Philosopher Cynthia Fleury says something that I find very true. “Social networks are a common place for hostility.” And that’s what happens to men. They use the networks, which give them a false sense of freedom and impunity, to convey their ideas and thus discredit women.
What effect did it have? #Me tooto the rise of this ideology?
Some men feel vulnerable, sometimes threatened. Some pretend not to understand the demands and anger of the #MeToo movement for fear of losing their privileges. This resistance is explained by the fact that they only see things to lose, not things to gain. More equal, better distribution of tasks… Profit is not desirable for them. For example, a man who devotes more time to his family and less to his work is still not appreciated. Because society is still frozen by patriarchy, which assigns roles and dictates to both women and men. While women have thwarted many of these instructions, men dare not. This would mean going towards what is devalued, that is, feminine.
This sexism and the interplay of gender stereotypes emerge from childhood.
Yes, there is sexism from the playground. There is a “peer view” from childhood, and worse in adolescence. It’s time to take an orientation and go to feminine and therefore discriminatory professions, it is a double disqualification: social (because the so-called “feminine” professions are by default poorly paid) and symbolic (we are leaving the “men’s club”). In order to change things, it would be necessary to ensure equal representation in places of power and institutions. And then to renew education because schooling continues to create gender inequalities.
There is still progress, don’t worry…
Of course, we see very significant progress. If only this awareness was due to #MeToo or domestic violence Grenell. So yes, it is progressing. Especially in the professional sphere, women leaders have made great progress, but pockets of resistance remain. And what’s preventing that is deep, entrenched sexism, and it’s going to take a very long time to change that.
(1) Masculinism is an ideology based on the idea of problematic masculinity. “There, masculinity is defined as an identity that can be lost and therefore must be protected,” explains Mélanie Gourarier, an anthropological researcher attached to the CNRS. quoted by TV5 Monde.
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Source: Le Figaro
