"The furred sex": French feminists wear beards

[EdithWeston]

La barbe also means "enough is enough".

But would you do this? Even with Gallic flair and sense of irony?

On the whole, I prefer women to be taken seriously. You don't see male pressure groups wearing fake breasts.

I'm sure you would prefer Women to remain in the kitchen, Cogito.

Have you actually read the article and considered why they were wearing fake beards? Or have you already made a prejudgement about why they were doing it?

Yeah, Fathers for Justice always look so damn sensible.

Why can't we be more like the men?

There's a play on words there I would think: "La barbe!" uttered in a cheese-off way means, "I've had enough!". Haven't read the article so I don't know if they mention that. I'll just go and read it now...

You know, I made that comment on the fly, but I'm thinking about it ... you know, you do see men getting dressed up like women for comic/polemic effect all the time, actually. Have you never seen a group of blokes on a stag night with fake boobs? And there's the whole culture of men cross-dressing, which seems to be far more common than women doing the same, and more mainstream.

There are actually very few ways women can dress up 'like men', aren't there? People say how men cross-dressing has shock value, but it seems to have much less shock value than bearded women, doesn't it? And the automatic reaction from cogito that men wouldn't do such a thing ... I don't know what to make of that, because they do it all the time, surely? It's women dressing up as men that is unusual.

That's a bloody brilliant protest.

I rather liked UK Feminista's Fuck the Patriarchy, Free your Minge protest against labiaplasty. Never fails to make me smile when i see the photos of a large group of women in jeans and merkins making a mockery of patriarchal arsehattery.

big step forward from Slutwalk

I think it's superb, and it's been very successful in terms of getting not only publicity for the group, but also positive publicity. I don't know of many 'serious' feminist protests that get international press - the topless Ukrainian woman is another that has (and, horrifyingly, some of the women have been kidnapped). Moreover it has rather effectively undermined stereotypes about humourless ranting feminists.
Would I do it - er well I doubt I'd have the style and guts to carry it off, but these women have. Well done them I say.

I agree with that Julia. Much better form of protest than Slutwalk

I think anyone trying to use humour to make a serious point risk it backfiring and just looking stupid. The fathers for justice people are forever pigeon-holed as sad bastards in batman costumes rather than serious campaigners. Women already have to overcome enough prejudice to get heard without encouraging others to laugh at them.

Ridiculous grow one or forget it

Yes, much better than slutwalk!

I actually think that this sort of approach might have quite an impact in France, where living feminism is still very much avoided by women. People will claim to be for women's rights, but what they mean is women's rights to go to work full-time and do all the housework and child-related things.

Most French men's basic feminism stops at picking up their own socks, doing any kind of housework and living in any way other than like a single man- most will still go out with friends, "work late in the office", without even thinking about checking whether it's feasible with their wife or partner. Most do not cook. Their lifestyle is enabled by the women in their life.

If a man is unlucky enough [irony alert!] to be married or in a relationship with an enlightened woman who doesn't iron, his mother will step in the perceived breach so that her darling doesn't suffer from his wife's neglectfulness. So women of all ages aid and abet the generalised misogyny. Women in France are a lot more objectified even than here, they just don't realise it, and actually buy into it.

cogito, do you think people are laughing in that way, though?

They are making a pun, but they're also sticking two fingers up to the idea that hairy/masculine women are shameful and ugly - I think it's funny but also very powerful.

If they made the same arguments dressed in neat skirt suits with elegantly plucked eyebrows, it wouldn't be half as good because it'd show them accommodating to the idea of what 'nice' women look like.

I love this, they're making a serious point in a way that is obvious and humorous, they're saying that in order to have a voice on the stuff they protest (Cannes, Freemasons) you have to be a man, and an old fashioned man at that.

I think it's great that they're drawing attention to this stuff. People always find a way to dismiss women's protests btw, whether it's that they're 'not serious', or that they're just jealous of miss world contestants or they're too middle class, or they don't understand banter, or whatever.

Feminists used to be accused of lacking a sense of humour. Not in France, apparently. Pity the bullies who removed them from the meeting so roughly couldn't see the funny side. It always fascinates me how threatened people feel by women who don't behave conventionally.

"cogito, do you think people are laughing in that way, though? "

I think they are. It's like that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when the women are banned from going to a stoning but slip on a fake beard and do it anyway. I don't object to women being funny... we're pretty good at it. It's obviously got the headlines so that's a plus. But I don't think it makes a serious point at all.

I wonder if any MNetters in France will see this thread. I'd be really interested in the French domestic reaction to this, especially as it seems La Barbe has been in action for a number of years.

I think the pun is lost on anyone who isn't French. Maybe that's my problem with it? All I'm seeing is 'bearded ladies' and thinking about Victorian circus freaks & Monty Python characters.

well, clearly it's lost on you Cogito, I'm not sure you should be speaking for the rest of us not-French people though

I think it's possible they were hoping you'd do more than just make a visual parallel with circus freaks, thought ... I mean, occasionally some of us would do a little analysis, consider why women in beards are culturally considered amusing or ugly, consider what that might have to do with this feminism shindig, no?

I didn't realize that to do effective political activism you had to spell out every single point for the hard-of-thinking minority.

"occasionally some of us would do a little analysis"

Is it still a joke if it has to be analysed first?...

Most of us didn't need quite so much analysis as you in order to get it, no.

I quite like Sunny Hundal on twitter and I like that.