Throughout the history of France, it seems that women have always appeared to be inferior to men, at least since the settling process in the Gallic period. The dominant religion, Catholicism, has intensified this state of mind as it considers God as superior to men, and men that are superior to women. Thus, the presupposed inferiority of women is not a new issue. However, a turning point might be the French Revolution in 1789, as a Constitution was written, creating concepts of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” in the French society. We will see why this attempt to universalism sets women apart and how women struggled to balance men's power. The climax of this evolution might be reached soon, as a woman is running for the supreme power: to become the next president of the French Republic. In a first part, we will see the family and equality at work and at home; then, we will question the concept of parity. In a third part, we will analyse the impat of the French revolution. In a fourth part, we will study current divergent opinions about parity. In a last part, we will examine the case of Ségolène Royal, and see if she is an example to follow.
[...] In it, Anne-Marie Colmou, in charge of this report, whose function was to be responsible of the requests for the Council of State, pointed out that the State needed the genious of women to reform. Maybe, it is the time for the feminine ingeniosity to reveal all its advantages through the person of Segolene Royal. Conclusion To gain rights, woman's struggle has been long and full of expectancies. Equal opportunities should mostly benefit women who have responsibilities within companies or in politics as this is where the difference of wages is the most salient. [...]
[...] The law that was passed in 2001 was supposed to fix inequalities as far as politics are concerned, but at the same time, it was given as a model for companies, when human resources had to recruit new personnel. The Parity law attributes a certain quota to women to achieve gender equality at all the political levels. In fact, parity can be defined as the sign of a crisis of democracy or as a crisis or representation. Indeed, Scott (2005, 12) explains that there was no law that prevented women from being representatives, but there is an almost “tacit agreement” concluded from males who did not want to make way for women. [...]
[...] Actually, the Marquise of Rambouillet had created the first salon in the seventeenth century in her Hôtel and she created a social institution that was not in competition with the salons that already existed for men. The intellectual women who gathered at the salon were called Les Précieuses but they were rapidly turned into ridicule because of their manners. With the opening of new salons involving a larger public, women were seen as more serious than in the time of la préciosité. These new salon women became more and more committed to political matters, and the willingness of the feminine elite started to be heard. [...]
[...] In other words, the parity law might create a positive discrimination that might reveal to be negative for the whole category of women if the women that are chosen are incompetent and only there because of quotas. Women might be seen as less good than men in their job then, which may create a sense of inferiority. There was an illustration of this, when in 1995, the UMP whose leader of government was Alain Juppé, decided to appoint twelve women for his first government in important functions to create a better representation of women in his government. [...]
[...] With a large support from the other philosophers of the time, he claimed that man-made laws only reflected natural laws that established the inferiority of women in relation to men. Moreover, throughout the readings of La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and Emile (1762), women belonged to the private sphere; consequently, they had no business in societal matters, and should rather stay at home to show compliance to their husbands. After the Déclaration Olympes de Gouges was an outstanding person as she wrote a “Declaration of the Rights of Women” in response to the newly voted Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen. [...]
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