We commit to showing our support to women in public life who are attacked as women. The Guard Bitches retorted with a scathing denouncement sent to all major newspapers and have used the tactic regularly as new cases crop up, fueling acres of media coverage, which has succeeded in tempering the urges of some male chauvinists. Getting that message across has been an uphill struggle for the activists, initially dismissed by some men as frustrated spinsters and rejected by image-conscious women who associate feminism with baggy jeans and facial hair. But at the same time it's really shortsighted. It's not by denying a problem that you solve it.
Statistics show that French women still lag behind men in virtually every aspect of public life.
They occupy only a tenth of seats in the French parliament, the second-lowest rate in Europe, and earn 20 percent less than their male counterparts. But progress is slow. When the French revolutionaries and the French left of the 19th century spoke of humanity and human rights, you have to realize they were referring exclusively to men. While such concepts seem hopelessly outdated, it is worth bearing in mind that French women won the right to vote only in 1944 and until 1965 had to obtain written consent from their husbands in order to work or open a bank account. To this day, French and foreign definitions of flirtatious behavior reveal a wide cultural gap.