Everyday sexism

[whatagain]

Sexism or machism is something that hurts me and I start to be simply revolted by the way some find it so 'normal.

Today's example is from a bastard very well known in France called Bernard Pivot.
The guy has held a show about books and litterature since ages and organised a competition called 'la dictée de Pivot' nationally followed.

In short, a well like intellectual.
Either he hid well that he is complete arsehole or his brains melted but here is what he had to say about the death of a french actress called Françoise Arnoul :

Everyone young is the 50's will remember her breasts, but they were not hers, she told him later.

Good grief ! All the guy has to say is about her boobs...

That followed an even more dubious comment in 2019 about Greta Thunberg and the fact that she would scare men away... limit paedophile.

[bixaorellana]

Obviously an asshole, but "everyday sexism" is prevalent everywhere in nice normal men who way too often are completely clueless about their own sexism.

And women too -- women can be just as oafishly sexist about their own sex as any man.

[kerouac2]

I would't say that I accept it better when people who know what they are talking about say it out of provocation, but I do find it even more shocking when expressed inadvertently and without malice by well-meaning people who are just repeating the same things they have heard their entire life. Parents have a lot to answer for.

[bixaorellana]

Parents aren't entirely responsible -- society itself is responsible. And sexism is not just saying sexist things. It is ones attitude and general treatment of the opposite sex.

[kerouac2]

It's not all black and white, as you well know.

Even though I know the name 'Françoise Arnoul' I am not at all familiar with her movies. However, I doubt that most people think of her in terms of boobs although apparently some old men do. The only thing that makes Bernard Pivot shocking is that he is one of the most respected intellectuals in France. Everybody knows that intellectuals do not possess any sexuality and would never make a remark about physical appearance, right? Or maybe not.

Let's select an actress from the same generation for examination, Brigitte Bardot. She was a "sex kitten" in the movies before being an animal rights activist (with perhaps some excessive views; that's open for debate) and finally a xenophobic right wing extremist (that is not open for debate in my book).

When she finally dies, if I am interviewed on television, I prefer to be charitable and say that her physique was unforgettable in the movie "And God Created Women." I would not want to mention the other stuff (keeping in mind that my interview would last about 40 seconds max). I hope that I would not be labelled a sexist for that. Sometimes sex is the nicest quality of certain people.

[bjd]

Well, I suppose it's a good thing that the Twittersphere immediately jumped on Pivot for that message (in April actually). Not too long ago, it would have passed completely unnoticed.

Rather pathetic too that this old guy (86) can only think of tits when he learns about the death of an actress.

[kerouac2]

I don't have a specific opinion on what Bernard Pivot said because I have not looked it up and do not feel inclined to do so. I do imagine that he said more than just one sentence about her boobs. He is the sort of person who says 50 sentences about everybody. So is he being condemned unjustly? I have no idea and I don't really care. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't either.

However, if anybody feels really strongly about this, I would be delighted to read a more extensive and precise quote. It is disconcertaing when people say "bastard" or "obviously an asshole" so spontaneously with absolutely no proof of an insult or even sexism. "Everybody will remember her breasts" is not the most damning evidence in the world.

[bixaorellana]

Objectifying a dead woman by immediately commenting on her body parts is indeed sexism.

[kerouac2]

You didn't read what I wrote, did you? We don't know what he said "immediately" or any of the other things he said. Perhaps whatagain will investigate. Saying that somebody is "obviously an asshole" from just one comment that one person wrote and having absolutely no other information on the subject is rather alarming, though. I am starting to understand how your mind works.

It doesn't seem like it takes much for you to get out your pitchfork and torch.

[whatagain]

This is not his first sexist idiocy.
What he said about Greta Thunberg was actually worse.

[bjd]

A quick google of 'Bernard Pivot' turns up lots of comments of what he said: ""Françoise Arnoul nous a quittés, a-t-il déclaré. Ses seins ont fait rêver les jeunes gens des années 50. Mais ceux qu’on pouvait admirer dans le film L’épave n’étaient pas les siens. Elle m’en a fait l’aveu au cours d’une émission. Encore mineure, elle n’avait pas eu le droit de tourner dénudée."

[lagatta]

Bernard Pivot is also well-known in Québec.

[kerouac2]

Jul 22, 2021 19:34:33 GMT whatagain said:

This is not his first sexist idiocy.
What he said about Greta Thunberg was actually worse.

The main thing to understand is that it is a bit late to send an 86 year old man to a re-education camp.  If this is all they can dig up on him after more than 50 years on television and his current presidency of the Goncourt academy, not to mention his tireless efforts to promote literacy in France, then the planet must be a fine place if the good thinking people in the world have so much time on their hands that they can amuse themselves by bashing him for a couple of possibly inappropriate statements.

I have always thought he was pompous and I have never been a fan, but at the same time I find him admirable for making France the only country in the world where you can have a two-hour literary discussion programme on television that "ordinary" people actually watch and go buy the books that are discussed.  Even so, I found it frightening that one person almost single handedly set the intellectual agenda of the country for so long.  The fact that he is semi-retired now suits me better.

[htmb]

In 2019, he underlined on Twitter that "cardinals, bishops and priests who rape children don't believe in heaven or hell", criticizing the influence of the Vatican II reform. In September 2019, he declared on Twitter: "In my generation, boys looked for little Swedish girls who had the reputation of being more open than French girls. I imagine our surprise, our fear, if we had approached a Greta Thunberg". Julien Bayou, from the environmentalist party, Europe Écologie - Les Verts, answered: « you're talking about a minor » and French feminist Caroline de Haas asked him to delete his post,[18] something he refused to do.[19] He was immediately defended by essayist Eric Zemmour.[20] In December, Bernard Pivot apologized for allowing Gabriel Matzneff to describe his relationships with teenage girls and boys on his literary talk shows without challenging him.[21]

In 2021, Pivot shocked after Francoise Arnoul passed away, reminding "her breasts were the dreams of young people of the 1950s. But the ones seen in The Wreck were not hers. She confessed it to me on a broadcast. Still a minor, she was not allowed to turn naked[22].

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Pivot

[htmb]

I’m too tired to write more, but in looking at the second paragraph above, I do get a little more of an understanding of what BP said about Françoise Arnoul.

[kerouac2]

You would have found even more on the French wiki.  I find it rather funny that people fantasized about Arnoul's boobs when they weren't even hers.

Times change. People chain-smoked on his principal TV programme "Apostrophes." What does "criticising the influence of the Vatican II reform" even mean? Wikipedia can be so sloppy.

Frankly, I am not shocked by what he said about Greta Thunberg. Both France and the United States have an entire movie genre devoted to adolescent boys and girls looking for sex, including other cultures where the females are reputedly "easy." For the French, it is Sweden but for most of the world it is France and nobody seems to be up in arms over this.

[htmb]

Wikipedia is never the best source for information, but it does occasionally come in handy. There’s more information on the page I referenced.

Just for the record, even if society accepts certain behaviors during periods in time, that doesn’t make them right. Sexism degrades and dehumanizes others. It’s often associated with power and control. I know that you understand this, Kerouac. I also believe you quite enjoy a good argument and a little fireworks from time to time. Me, not so much.

[kerouac2]

Yes, but what disturbs me is that if any fault was committed, it was really minor in terms of the example presented. A thing that is much worse is that author Gabriel Matzneff was interviewed a number of times by Pivot and by others while being an acknowledged paedophile and rapist. And I can confirm it completely because I read one of his books, actually his first one of compiled journals Cette camisole de flammes (This Flaming Straightjacket) (Actually a great title -- I think that's what made me want to read it.). It was actually on Pivot's show that he was confronted by a Canadian writer who was outraged by him. Oh, if only the days of authentic live television would return! Now everything is recorded and edited to make sure thzt there are no unexpected shocks.

It was only in 2020 that the French justice system took an interest in him, but he too is an old man now (age 84) and all of his repugnant crimes have legally expired. It's probably not just in France, but that is the only country with which I am conversant on the subject, but the cultural microcosm gets away with murder for years doing all sorts of nasty things -- incest, underage sex -- and their peers just turn a blind eye on it. Luckily, that is finally coming to an end, but as recently as Sarkozy's presidency, one of his ministers of culture (Frédéric Mitterrand) wrote books about having sex with boys on his incessant trips to Thailand. He easily got off the hook by saying "Oh, I said they were boys, but they were actually young men."

So there are millions of things to denounce and sometimes prosecute, but in most cases bygones are bygones or else Joe Biden would be in a heap of trouble for touching thousands of women without their permission over the years.

[whatagain]

Pivot is just an arsehole.

The good thing is that it seems to not be toletated anymore to say such things.

From an old 86 idiot or from anybody. And if you don't react to this, then you let it go for others. That is what i mean by everyday sexism.

One of my daughter doesn't wear skirts or robes. Ever. She feels ill at ease when she wears one. Allowing comments such as BP's only serves the other idiots in their day to day sexism.
Fighting it makes their life slightly less comfortable.

So it is only a step in the right ditection, but any road is taken steo by step.
It only starts. But some day, we will not tolerate such behavior anymore.
And it had better come fast. And everybody can bring his/her own small stone to the building.

[lagatta]

It is funny about skirts and dresses vs trousers/jeans... Many women in fundamentalist branches of religions (the three Abrahamic monotheisms, but also others) will not wear the latter, I guess because men can fantasize about their crotch even in the case of loose pantaloons. I certainly wear skirts (about knee-length or a bit above or below)in the summer heat when jeans are too hot; I don't like wearing shorts unless I'm doing housework, exercising or in a non-urban outdoor setting.

Here is a bit more (in French) about Bernard Pivot in Québec. I don't have the energy to translate it all though I can certainly answer questions. Try Reverso translate (better than Google).

ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1027752/preservation-promotion-francais-france-inspirer-quebec-bernard-pivot

I'm fortunate to know men of almost Pivot's age with a more enlightened view of women, and knew slightly older ones, but they have passed on.

We share our member of the Académie française, Dany Laferrière, with Haiti.

[fumobici]

Jul 23, 2021 2:45:39 GMT htmb said:

In 2019, he underlined on Twitter that "cardinals, bishops and priests who rape children don't believe in heaven or hell"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Pivot

I find that self-evidently likely to be true. You have to be aching pretty hard for offense to find exception with it I reckon. Many people must enter the clergy who haven't the slightest faith or belief in the religion, but find it a good gig for its many ancillary benefits. Pedophile clergy clearly fall into this category. 

[kerouac2]

I read somewhere that 18% of French priests do not believe in god. But they believe in the values expressed by the Catholic church and don't mind pretending. And I'm sure that what fumobici wrote is also correct -- the benefits are not bad, the work is not difficult, and the ones of that bent also have access to children. (Meanwhile, I did see that only 2% o Anglican priests say they believe that god is a fiction.) Allowing Catholic priests to marry would probably not change things much since married men of any kind are often involved in reprehensible practices and on top of that, it would probably throw a heavy veil of suspicion on priests who would say that they prefer to remain celibate. You just can't win when you debate religion.

As for B. Pivot, I remain astonished that whatagain would be so outraged by the rather mild statements on record. I have heard him tell off-colour jokes on several occasions and they could be considered far less appropriate than expressing admiration of anonymous tits that did not even belong to a dead actress but her body double (back when seeing tits of any kind in a movie in the 1950s was thrilling and/or shocking) or worrying about whether Greta Thunberg would have been desirable or not to French teenagers.

Let's try to get real about what is truly offensive.

I already said that I was not a fan of Bernard Pivot, and whatagain clearly despises him. (We don't know if this is longstanding or just a recent development.) However, both of us are in a very small minority since most people in his cultural zone of influence love him. Are either of us qualified to judge him (or even Bixa who expressed an instant dogmatic opinion as people often do when presented with a crumb of either fact or fake news)?

In any case, I see that just about all of the buzz about Bernard Pivot was on the ultra right wing media.  They want to crush him for being a leftist.