Response to French Letter Denouncing #MeToo Shows a Sharp Divide

Response to French Letter Denouncing #MeToo Shows a Sharp Divide
12, 2018
PARIS — A public letter signed by more than 100 French women
that denounced the #MeToo movement has sparked an intense debate in France over everything from the appropriate limits of flirtation to the extent to which the French should absorb American sexual norms.
tereotypes that are held by many people in France." But Marilyn Baldeck, a legal professional who trains employees about sexual harassment in the workplace, said
that "when we give these people concrete examples of sexual harassment, they tend to change their minds and acknowledge how harmful some situations can be." Eloise Stark contributed reporting. that s
That is fact and not a moral judgment.’’ The debate has raised questions, too, about what some French men
and women view as the growing influence of puritanical American sexual mores on a culture long associated with more fluid and open attitudes.
Marlène Schiappa, France’s junior minister for gender equality, called the letter a potpourri of ideas, some of which were "not uninteresting," while others were "profoundly shocking." "We have immense difficulty convincing young women
that when a man rubs his genitals against a woman in the métro without her consent, it is an act of sexual assault that can lead to three years in prison and a 75,000 euro fine," she told France Culture radio on Wednesday.
The response to the letter, published Tuesday in the newspaper Le Monde and signed by the actress Catherine Deneuve among others, has exposed sharp cultural divides between women who worry about the creation of a cultureof victimhood and those who insist
that the focus in sexual harassment should be concern for the victims.