no escaping (French and Australian) gender roles…

by guest blogger Romana Byrne, an Australian who has been living in France since August 2011.

I’ve been thinking a little about how France and Australia differ regarding gender roles, sexuality, and cultural practices, and thought I’d share this with escapetoparis readers to see what you think.

Some of the most interesting cultural differences that I have observed pertain to gender roles. Despite France’s reputation for valuing sensuality and seduction, the heterosexual courtship practices here evidence strict and decidedly conservative gender roles. I’ve discussed this matter with a few people here now, and there seems to be very clear conventions. In matters of seduction, it is often, nearly always, the male who pursues, makes the first move, and nearly always the female who waits, acts cool, plays hard to get, and certainly never sleeps with her pursuer on the first date (or even the second), unless she definitely wants to leave the event as a one-night-stand and nothing more. If she transgresses these rules, she’s “easy” and therefore her value reduces significantly. Of course, not knowing these rules, and coming from a culture where it is acceptable for the female to take a more “active” role in the courtship process, I’ve completely flouted them (fortunately with someone who is too intelligent and culturally sensitive to think of me as a slut!).  Also, I had a friend who began courting a French man, and it was a month before she slept with him (Philippe tells me this is not too unusual); can you imagine an Australian man waiting that long?

Surely this male-pursues, female-holds-back-and-waits dynamic must be restricted to heterosexual contexts; surely the rules-of-procedure for women must change somewhat in lesbian communities, or else there wouldn’t be much happening at all after everyone leaves the nightclub. Or perhaps one takes a designated “male” or “female” role? I’m afraid I haven’t really had a chance to personally investigate queer French courtship yet.

Curiously, in contrast with the rather constricted gendered courtship roles, French heterosexual masculinity appears to be much less narrow than the Australian variety. That is, the “average” (I know this is a problematic term, but bear with me) heterosexual French male can do, and most certainly does, a whole variety of things that would compromise an “average” Australian male’s sense of heterosexual virility, such as frequent tea salons (there are many wonderful salons du thé here), take courses in acting, dancing and singing, appreciate literature and poetry, express his emotions at length, and dress himself with attention to elegance and dignity.

Actually, the broader issue to which this is connected is the more central role of what we vaguely refer to as “culture”. What we might think of as “cultured activities” in Australia – going to the theatre or an independent, non-block-buster art gallery, for example – are par-for-the course, no-brainer Saturday afternoon outings for most people, and are not tied to education level or the position you might hold in the arts industry. And cultural artefacts that we might consider “high-brow”, “art-house” or “indie” in Australia – like old French films, graphic novels, avant-garde literature, Molière and an affected melancholy, for instance – are positively mainstream in France. In contrast to the situation in which I lived in Melbourne, where most of my friends have or are doing PhDs and can boast a privileged training in cultural knowledge, and own plenty of cultural capital, I’m very aware that the social milieu I inhabit here is, in the main, profoundly ordinary in terms of cultural, scholastic, and economic wealth. And this makes the disjuncture between Australian and French modes of linking identity with cultural consumption and activities all the more striking.

Anyway, if any readers have any thoughts on the matter – even if you think I’m completely wrong – I’d love to hear them.