Now try responding to both of you at the same time.
here's something to keep you going then
right, I’ve had a bit of time to look back over this thread; here’s a summary of my arguments:
1. I point out that there are huge cultural differences between French feminists and US feminists, and the balance lies somewhere in the middle
2. MoonlitAngel describes how women here in the States are often raised to believe they must be polite when dealing with men, and I respond by my experience in France, how there isn’t the same type of systemic submission, and how it’s ok to strongly rebuff unwanted attention, and talk about liberte, egalite, fraternite being enshrined in our constitution and drummed into kids throughout their education
3. cori also backs up MoonlitAngel’s views, talking about social "training", how men are seen as the initiators, women have been "taught" to not want sex, to always be polite, let men down gently, and I again share how different these attitudes to sex are in France
4. Then suddenly, Iron Yuppie and yourself misunderstand this and think I am making out France to be some kind of utopia, when I am simply pointing out cultural differences in terms of sex (and women having no problem telling a guy to get lost), and talking about basic French principles underlying these differences.
5. And then it kicks off into a bazillion other areas, race, religion, and again I explain the differences in France in these respects (assimilation, more clearly later on, and separation of church and state), and then you claim France is no different to the UK and the US, and seem to assume I think racism, sexism, homophobia etc. miraculously don’t exist here… I then point out loads of cultural and social differences between France and the UK, and talk about hate speech laws, especially with respect to racism (btw, if Trump was a French candidate, he would not have been allowed to get away with what he did – he would have had so many charges against him during his campaign for his hate speech – Le Pen (though equally dreadful) is actually pretty careful with the language she uses, exactly for this reason, and she dresses up her hateful views with carefully chosen language to get round our hate speech laws (although sometimes she loses control and gets gonged LOL)
Nowhere did I claim that these things don’t exist or never happen in France, just that we have strict laws to protect us when they do and which also can serve as a deterrent – you literally misread my posts, or didn’t actually bother reading them (haha which i understand lol, but i don't appreciate being accused of something i didn't do)…
other differences: when our presidents have mistresses, it's never really been a big deal - mitterand had a second family, hollande used to hop on a scooter to visit his mistress - no-one really bats an eyelid about those things here, not like how the Clinton/ Lewinski thing was handled in the US - there are definitely different attitudes between our countries - not saying one is better than the other, but just different...
heck we also can't display swastikas here - that is also an offence which carries heavy penalties, unlike the US