I moved to France 30 years ago, and since many people have asked me what surprised me about France. But they are the ones who look surprised when I reply "the sexism, the insidious sexism." It took me many years to realise that the problem of consent didn't enter into peoples minds. And so many women told me domestic violence was normal, was not important! Of course a lot of men thought that women deserved what they got ! I felt I had moved into a country stuck in the 1950s. I'm sorry Mme Pélicot had to suffer, but I bless her for bringing all this to the public eye. May France progress.
I'm unsure how the insidious sexism caught you by surprise when it's been caricatured by Western entertainment for decades. The French men are almost always portrayed as lecherous creeps for whom consent is optional at best. It feels akin to being surprised by a lung cancer diagnosis after decades of heavy smoking.
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I moved to France 30 years ago, and since many people have asked me what surprised me about France. But they are the ones who look surprised when I reply "the sexism, the insidious sexism." It took me many years to realise that the problem of consent didn't enter into peoples minds. And so many women told me domestic violence was normal, was not important! Of course a lot of men thought that women deserved what they got ! I felt I had moved into a country stuck in the 1950s. I'm sorry Mme Pélicot had to suffer, but I bless her for bringing all this to the public eye. May France progress.
I'm unsure how the insidious sexism caught you by surprise when it's been caricatured by Western entertainment for decades. The French men are almost always portrayed as lecherous creeps for whom consent is optional at best.
It feels akin to being surprised by a lung cancer diagnosis after decades of heavy smoking.