Anti-sexism classes for chauvinist French ministers
French PM decides it's time to drag his team into 21st century after a string of oafish outbursts
First there was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who allegedly referred to women as "material", then catcalls in the French parliament just because a female minister wore a floral dress.
But when the agriculture minister - in an interview last month about promoting gender equality - suggested women couldn't get their heads around technical jobs, that was too much.
The prime minister of France - a country that produced feminist icons such as Joan of Arc and Simone de Beauvoir - has decided that his ministers need to go back to school for anti-sexism classes.
On Jean-Marc Ayrault's orders, the Equality Ministry has set up a series of 45-minute gender equality "sensitisation sessions", during which ministers are being trained to identify sexism in daily life and taught how to avoid sexist stereotypes in political communication.
It was a full class, with all 38 ministers signed up or in the process of registering. In the interest of gender equality, the female ministers are going, too.
The goal, said organiser Caroline de Haas, is that ministers take time to think about sexism. "If you're not vigilant, de facto inequalities are created," she said.
De Haas said 80 per cent of politicians interviewed on French TV and radio broadcasts were men. She said she wanted to fight against the "illusion" that France "has almost achieved equality" between men and women. France is now trailing in an unimpressive 48th place on the Global Gender Gap equality list.
