Yes, they get fat. Yes, they age. And no, they're not constantly carrying baguettes.
Author Alice Pfeiffer dismantles the postcard perfect stereotypes of French women in her book, "I am not a Parisian."
Author Alice Pfeiffer dismantles the postcard perfect stereotypes of French women in her book, "I am not a Parisian."
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00French women don't get fat. I don't know how this would be even possible.
00:04We don't have a different gene system that processes calories differently.
00:07Of course French women do get fat. All women do get fat.
00:10French women don't get facelifts. That is a lie.
00:13French women don't sleep alone. I wish that was true.
00:30A Parisian woman is many, many different kind of women.
00:32But in marketing terms, it's one long bourgeois white woman
00:39who supposedly represents all of France.
00:41Always the same, being completely ageless, supposedly, never putting on any weight,
00:46always wearing 27 meters heels, in the middle of Saint-Germain,
00:50probably carrying a baguette, running around reading Sartre.
00:54Because you're supposed to be, A, not care about what you look like,
00:57but B, still being chic around the clock without even having tried,
01:01which is an oxymoron.
01:03It descends from the Periode des Lumières, the Enlightenment period,
01:06and the women who used to hold literary salons, such as Madame de Sévigné.
01:10And later on in the 1920s, Garcon came into fame for being rebellious women,
01:16and for smoking, driving, wearing men's clothes.
01:20And from that, slowly, there was a kind of Parisian elegance that popped up in history,
01:24that popped up again in the 60s with Ye Ye Girls, which were a type of singer.
01:28But today, what's happened is that the reason we only talk about Parisienne
01:32when we refer to French women is because we're a heavily centralized country.
01:35The power emanates from Paris.
01:37The money comes from Paris.
01:39It's also one of the most touristic destinations in the world.
01:42So women have become a kind of package deal,
01:44where you'll have the macarons, and you'll have the Eiffel Tower,
01:46and you'll have the chic women.
01:55There's a whole market from America, from the rest of Europe,
01:58all coming to study Frenchness.
02:00It's become a myth, and it's become a marketing ploy,
02:03I think, because luxury groups are based in Paris.
02:05And so they sell Paris as part of the postcard that envelops the act of purchase.
02:10So I was born just outside Paris, and I was schooled up to age 15 inside Paris.
02:14So I technically count as a Parisienne,
02:18but I'm not a Parisienne, and I'm not a Parisienne.
02:21So I technically count as a Parisienne.
02:25So I remember coming back from London after living there for 10 years,
02:29and I was chubbier, and I dressed more eccentrically.
02:34And I remember wearing lots of collared tights, flower dresses,
02:39crowns of plastic flowers on my head,
02:41which didn't even occur to me were eccentric in any way, shape or form,
02:45because in England, no one comments on your appearance in the street.
02:47And I remember coming back and being immediately told off,
02:50as I write in my book, for ordering more chips at the brasserie,
02:53and then, you know, and having the waiter go,
02:56don't, attention, attention, and then tapping his hips
02:58to indicate that I was going to gain weight from it.
03:00Over the years, without even realizing,
03:02I started, you know, wearing more black clothing
03:05and abandoning all the lovely crowns of plastic flowers.
03:08If anyone comes to France, they'll be highly disappointed,
03:11maybe excited, maybe disappointed.
03:13There's a thing called the Paris syndrome,
03:15where tourists come out of either the airport or the train station,
03:19and they realize that it's a city that's mixed and diverse,
03:24and not just like a clean postcard and freak out and end up at the hospital.
03:30Be ready to see women of all shapes and sizes and origins,
03:34and not just a skinny brunette.
03:38Oops!