I don't know how Ségolene does it
What interests me most about Ségolene Royale is not what lingerie she has going on, or how she has managed to connive herself into the running for the Socialist presidency from a standing start. Can you tell I am not a French man?
No, I would love to be a fly on the wall in her life in order to work out what exactly has to give - the sex life, happy pill dependence, kids in therapy, other (please state), in order to look that good and so utterly on top of things at 52. Sod the presidential ambitions, the woman has FOUR children and no eye bags.
I suspect the answer is that she is one of THAT type of French woman. The kind that I have had ample time to study from afar (friendship not being on the cards) over the last couple of years. She is whippet thin, immaculate, has a rub-your-nose-in-it number of children (usually four), and a top-flight career. I don't know if this is connected, but she usually wears loafers, which happen to be my most depised breed of footwear.
I can only guess at what makes these women tick. As a rumpled English stay-at-home mum who takes her son to school with her hair still wet from the shower (breaking unspoken rule no 438143 in the process), I am about as far along the spectrum from them as it is possible to be. But there are a few key qualifications that I have managed to identify.
Number one is lack of guilt. This woman is able to not see her children during the week, or occasionally at weekends if she's working, and not feel bad about it. 'Il faut absolument pas se culpabiliser' is their war cry. She is working, she has a career, she is important, and the children have their own lives. This is made possible by the fact that French schools are open 12 hours a day, and there are various other cheap childcare options for preschoolers (especially if you have town-hall connections, as these women usually do). There is also very little social stigma or criticism aimed at these women, as there is in the UK and the States. A phrase I read in a French parenting magazine sums it up: 'L'enfant doit s'adapter, et voir sa mère s'épanouir' (the child must adapt, and see his mother thrive).
Number two, most of these women are deeply unsure of themselves. Raised in the French education system, which is based on criticism, they have battled their way to the top, but at a price. They are driven to achieve because they feel they can never be good enough. The result is a brittle, suspicious and practically friendless woman who never opens up to others.
Britain has its superwomen of course - look at Cherie Blair. But it's really not the same thing. For a start, there is no risk of us ever discovering how much Ségo spends on hairdressers or who pays for it (nothing ruins the feminine mystique like too much information, otherwise known as transparency). Secondly, this type of Française will never stoop to pretending she is a mere mortal, just like the rest of us, barely holding it together, that Cherie goes in for (as per her weepy press conference performance about the dodgy Bristol flats). The essence of French superwoman is not that she SEEMS super-human, but that she IS super-human. Got that?
No, I would love to be a fly on the wall in her life in order to work out what exactly has to give - the sex life, happy pill dependence, kids in therapy, other (please state), in order to look that good and so utterly on top of things at 52. Sod the presidential ambitions, the woman has FOUR children and no eye bags.
I suspect the answer is that she is one of THAT type of French woman. The kind that I have had ample time to study from afar (friendship not being on the cards) over the last couple of years. She is whippet thin, immaculate, has a rub-your-nose-in-it number of children (usually four), and a top-flight career. I don't know if this is connected, but she usually wears loafers, which happen to be my most depised breed of footwear.
I can only guess at what makes these women tick. As a rumpled English stay-at-home mum who takes her son to school with her hair still wet from the shower (breaking unspoken rule no 438143 in the process), I am about as far along the spectrum from them as it is possible to be. But there are a few key qualifications that I have managed to identify.
Number one is lack of guilt. This woman is able to not see her children during the week, or occasionally at weekends if she's working, and not feel bad about it. 'Il faut absolument pas se culpabiliser' is their war cry. She is working, she has a career, she is important, and the children have their own lives. This is made possible by the fact that French schools are open 12 hours a day, and there are various other cheap childcare options for preschoolers (especially if you have town-hall connections, as these women usually do). There is also very little social stigma or criticism aimed at these women, as there is in the UK and the States. A phrase I read in a French parenting magazine sums it up: 'L'enfant doit s'adapter, et voir sa mère s'épanouir' (the child must adapt, and see his mother thrive).
Number two, most of these women are deeply unsure of themselves. Raised in the French education system, which is based on criticism, they have battled their way to the top, but at a price. They are driven to achieve because they feel they can never be good enough. The result is a brittle, suspicious and practically friendless woman who never opens up to others.
Britain has its superwomen of course - look at Cherie Blair. But it's really not the same thing. For a start, there is no risk of us ever discovering how much Ségo spends on hairdressers or who pays for it (nothing ruins the feminine mystique like too much information, otherwise known as transparency). Secondly, this type of Française will never stoop to pretending she is a mere mortal, just like the rest of us, barely holding it together, that Cherie goes in for (as per her weepy press conference performance about the dodgy Bristol flats). The essence of French superwoman is not that she SEEMS super-human, but that she IS super-human. Got that?
posted by francesca tereshkova | 3:08 AM
1 Comments:
Yeah, and she's got a 7/7 cleaning lady and probably a nanny. We could all look less baggy-eyed with all that help.
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