Thanks to their miserly and un-blog-friendly policy of charging non-UK readers a subscription, there is no direct link to this article in the UK Times. However it is worth a mention as it may go some way to explaining a thing or two:
Four decades of feminism have turned middle-class French men into miserable creatures who are intimidated by women and losing their way in an increasingly matriarchal society, a study says.
Of course, Groundskeepeer Willy would say that he knew this all along.
Men under 35 in particular felt that they were being treated as sexual objects by predatory young women.
And this is a cause for complaint?
Modern men see women as “castrating, vengeful, power-hungry and obsessed by men’s sexual performance”.
And that’s even before she’s hired a lawyer.
Men blamed advertising and the media for treating them as useless or sexual objects. They had suffered various phases of “destabilisation”. In the Sixties and Seventies they had experienced the moral revolution and the doctrine of female equality.
In the Eighties they had faced “implosion” through an explosion of models, from Golden Boys to gays and the Rambo type. In the Nineties they had been stressed by unemployment, aids, globalisation and the failure of the “masculine” technocratic model of society that had prevailed in France.
Younger men were said to be more unhappy than their elders. The 25-35 group felt that women “consume men and abuse them sexually”. The saddest group seemed to be those aged 20-25, who the magazine defined as “subjugated and feminised”.
It is not rare that they cultivate a gay image in which they find a model for acceding to femininity. Behind the abandonment of their virility there lies another odd ideal: that of ‘homosexual fusion’ with the woman, a loss of differentiation between sexes.
Perhaps this explains all that French obstructionism in the UN. Maybe it’s the result of a deep mistrust of all this Anglo-Saxon ‘virility’.
This is news?
😉
Thank God American men found their collective manhoods and put their feet down about this nonsense.
At least, somewhat.
I also suspect that some of these pansy men will find that they have an easier time of it if they throw off their shackles and stop giving a damn what the femmes think. They’ll suddenly discover a truism that’s as old as time:
Women are attracted to strong, confident men.
Well whadda ya know French males are GIRLYMEN. Who da thunk.
I read this article in the Times paper edition, and I thought the photograph [from some film] of the icy-eyed young French woman was worth a couple of hundred words at least.
My theory is that self-pity is at the root of most cruelty. I have encountered a handful of very narcissistic and pushy girls who comandeer the supposed disadvantages of women in times past to justify their own greed now.
What these women are not prepared for, I find, is to have their rudeness pointed out. But this could be where French men are handicapped. Do the French have a concept of manners, or is it rather etiquette? I have some very sweet-natured French friends, but our overall impression of them as give-them-an-inch-and-they-impose-a-kilometre might help explain why some of their women are getting difficult.
Hmmm… do I sense the possibility of an outsider advantage in Paris bars? Nothing like a bit of uncomplicated mutual lust I always say…
You might have something there, Dale….
While the men are busy at home with their assigned relationship-science reading lists, you mean?
Indeed, Dale, I think that Paris is ripe, at least sexually, for invasion once again. You won’t find too many American GIs carping about having to service tender French madamoiselles on a regular basis, though quick showers for the randy lasses first might be in order.
We can let the French fellows stand by with towels and bowls of vitamin E capsules…the world’s first self-made eunuchs.
Don’t forget they tried to export this nonsense a few years ago, as well. Edith cresson accused British men of being a nation of homosexuals, for some reason.
The French are just odd.
This link seems to work for me.
(I haven’t figured the Times out yet. Sometimes links ask me to log in; sometimes they don’t.)
I read the article and I don’t get it. Okay, things are changing there are all kind new outside pressures, but it seems to me that the men’s reaction to the changes, not these outside pressures themselves are what mark their femininity. Furthermore, most women I know, most a fine feminine quality, would not bow to such pressures.
I’m not sure that I even completely believe the article’s conclusion. My experience is that when men feel confused or their masculinity threatened they try to compensate by affecting not a “gay” attitude but a “tough guy” attitude. I saw it all the time working in bars, these boys act and dress in a why that they think is bad-ass, yet they telegraph their fear of women (and being slighted) by sticking to their group and only approaching women in the easiest of manners (dance floor, drunken come-ons). The men that I have known who are lady-killers never adopt this attitude, it’s not because they are not tough (they usually are), but it is because they are extremely confident and don’t require such attitudes [and yes, they would tell a women when she was being rude instead of just yelling ‘bitch’ and running away.]
I gotta think this is what is really going on in France today. Just look at the way women are treated in the cites. Those boys have such little balls (pardon my language) that the only way they feel like men is by ganging up on girls and only fighting with numerical advantage.
Such ninies confuse me, but they never frighten me because I know they are already afraid.
I’d be interested to know whether or not Europe’s obsession with tiny, fuel-efficient, aluminum soap box-carts has had any effect on the Euromale pysche. Had it not been so difficult to acquire Ford GTO’s, Lincoln Navigators, or Dodge Ram V-8 Extended cab monster trucks in Europe, the testosterone set may well have found refuge in the driver’s seat.
Also, the French language is such a feminen language, the deck was stacked against the guys from the getgo. How you can remain masculine speaking like that all the time is beyond me, although it certainly suits pretty French girls just fine. But no wonder they always lose wars. It took a shrimp driven by a complex to get them any military respect whatsoever.
Hey Dale, I’ll meet up with you for night out in Paris. Let’s put your hypothesis to the test. 😉
RE: The no free ride for non UK residents, vis a vis the UK Times, this JUST might work for non-UK residents.
If you can find a proxy server somewhere in England and then go through the registration rigamarole at the UK Times site, AND let the site set a cookie on your computer, you might then be able to access the site in future without using the proxy server.