Fed up with obscene remarks and wandering hands, dozens of female French journalists have signed a petition published on Tuesday denouncing sexism from male politicians.
“Get your paws off me,” read the front page of the Liberation newspaper, where 40 female political reporters detailed sexist and lewd behavior they experienced while working in the corridors of power.
One describes waiting in the heart of the French National Assembly only to be greeted by a lawmaker saying: “Ah, but you are on the game, hustling for a client.”
Another mentions a member of the Chamber of Deputies running his hands through her hair, while a minister’s adviser asked a journalist upon her return from vacation if she was “tanned all over.”
From a political spokesman taking photographs of sleeping female journalists on an airplane during the previous presidential campaign, to a “friend of the president” declaring that journalists are “much more interesting when they have big breasts,” the female reporters have had enough.
AFTER STRAUSS-KAHN
In the petition, they condemn how little has changed after the downfall of former IMF managing director and French presidential contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose notorious sexual appetite landed him in court on several occasions.
“We thought that the DSK case had shifted the line and that chauvinist attitudes were on the verge of extinction. Alas!” read the article, using Strauss-Kahn’s initials.
Strauss-Kahn’s career imploded after his arrest for allegedly sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid.
The charges were dropped, but the case revealed details of his often crude behavior with women, highlighting sexist attitudes from French male politicians.
The journalists also described insistent text messages or telephone calls seeking late-night meetings, suggestions to pop into a nearby hotel “for a bit of fun” and one official who had to be threatened with harassment charges.
CONDESCENSION
“There are also condescending sighs when we ask questions in news conferences: ‘That is such a girl question,’” the journalists wrote.
However, the petition highlights that there are also many politicians who do not act in this manner, especially younger ones.
“The fact that these practices — which mirror those that happen every day in the street, factories and offices — involve elected officials charged with creating policy, leads us to denounce them,” they wrote.
The petition was signed by 16 reporters from the main French media houses including Liberation itself, Le Monde and Le Parisien newspapers, Radio France International and Agence France Presse.
The rest of the journalists preferred to remain anonymous due to their “complicated professional situation.”
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