I love Papis, I mean, Paris

The article below was written by Colette Davidson. She has written articles for this blog before and this is the second article she has submitted to this blog. Her blog is located here.

I love Papis… I mean, Paris!

Written By: Colette Davidson





France loves to shake things up. After three years in this country, I don’t necessarily look for absurdity anymore. At first, I noticed it all around me. Like, why were all the men under five-foot-five with shaggy beards and John Lennon glasses? And why didn’t women give the courtesy smile when leaving the public bathroom stalls?



Still, I am not immune to bizarre experiences here and so, because I am apparently due, I had one. It was like giving birth, really. Scary and painful but joyful afterwards. At least this is what I assume child birth to be like. The closest I have come was when I crotched the beam on a straddle jump at gymnastics practice in the ninth grade, and then landed it perfectly, minutes later.



Well, my vagina didn’t exactly have to push a live, human head out of itself today, but I do think it was sufficiently traumatized, as was I. In any normal American setup, going to the gyno would just be mildly humiliating. But in France, it’s downright weird. No other fancy vocabulary to describe it. Just weird.



First, I have to say that the Paris doctors are really doing something right because ever since I got here, it’s one fancy waiting room after another. Whereas in smaller towns, the doctors actually put up copies of their medical diplomas on the walls, the Paris ones just sling a Monet up there or place a finely crafted piece of modern art in the corner.



Dr. Villeneuve was no exception. In order to disguise the fact that her office was in the middle of the French version of the projects, she filled her space with wicker chairs with white cushions, potted orchids and bamboo. I knew I was going to get along fine with this one. Until, until…



An unusually hoarse voice called my name and I wandered over to shake hands with not a woman… but a girl. A girl my age.



Now for some reason, I have more of a problem letting someone who I could share a beer with after work look at my hoo-ha than a mother figure. Maybe because in my head, moms are supposed to help you out in a bind. Like when you have a yeast infection? Okay fine, the logic doesn’t make sense, but I was really struggling to picture this girl who could be one of my friends seeing me naked after only knowing me for ten minutes.



Luckily, the doctor wasted plenty of time getting to know allll my family history, from A to Z, in classic bureaucratic French style. At one point she asked me, “when was your last ‘frotti.’” Having no idea what this meant, I did a quick mental French vocabulary check. So, “frotte” meant “to rub.” Surely she didn’t mean to ask me when the last time it was that I masturbated. How about sex, then? As I tried to remember the last time I had been “frottied” she said in a perfect English accent, “pap smear.” Ah ha! I answered a few more questions about my grandmother’s cancer and my asthma, and we were through. By the time I had to strip down, I felt like I had known the doctor for years.



Dr. Villeneuve told me to take my pants and underwear off and sit on the table. Where was my paper apron thingy they normally give you? Nothing doing. I just had to pants myself and sit. And then, to my horror, the doctor proceeded to take my blood pressure. Couldn’t she do that while I was fully clothed? Did my bush have to be exposed while she was checking my risk of heart attack?



Minutes later, though, I was pushing back into the usual position. There was a lovely photo of the Buddha above my head in classy black and white. Gosh, I love these Paris doctors, I thought.



When Dr. Villeneuve had taken her fingers out of me, I started readying myself to sit up. Not so fast. On to the breast exam! As I wondered how I was going to expose my breasts to the doctor without becoming suddenly fully naked, she instructed me lift my top and take my bra off. So, fine, I lost that battle. I suddenly flashed back to the period in high school when I wasn’t sure if I was straight because I couldn’t get a guy to talk to me, and realized then and there that getting felt up by a girl was definitely not my thing.



Sitting up, I said, half-blushing, “It’s so different here than in the States,” referring to the awkward t-shirt lifting, bra unclasping moments before. “It’s hard to know what to do.” The doctor chuckled at my description of the open-in-the-back-ass-crack, life-size paper napkin we are given in the U.S. “Here, it’s a lot more…naked,” I grimaced.



We went back to her desk while she fiddled around with my, er, scrapings, when she asked me where I lived, down to my metro stop. Great, I thought, I was going to get asked out by my female gynecologist. Then I remembered how earlier I had confessed to having a regular boyfriend during the whole, “are you getting any” conversation and assured myself that I was in the clear.



“Now,” said my doctor, looking up. “I’m putting your pap smear in this envelope. It’s already stamped and addressed. All you have to do is fill out this form, enclose a check, and put it in the mail.” Was I getting this right? She wanted me to take my pap smear home with me? Sometimes the French were too much. First, no air conditioning or toilets in public places, and now this. Someone was going to get a nasty letter.



As I put the clear plastic case into my purse, I tried to keep the horror off my face while I thanked the doctor and wished her good day. After three years in France, this was definitely a new one.



Walking out of the office, I decided to look on the bright side. I wondered, what would my pap smear like to do for fun? I mean, it’s not everyday that she gets out and about. Perhaps I should show her a good time.



First, I ordered a Super Cookie from Mie Caline, the McDonald’s version of the French bakery. As I licked the chocolate from my lips, I considered offering her some. But then I remembered how too much sugar disturbs her flora and fauna and decided to just polish the thing off myself.



Next we rode on the metro. Whoa, did someone have motion sickness! I was surprised, considering all the vibration my pap smear is usually used to, considering I see my boyfriend a few times a week.



We got off at Hotel de Ville – one stop early – because I wanted my pap smear to see the Seine. If you’re going out for the first time in Paris, you really can’t miss it. We watched the boats go down the river and she even convinced me to take my sixth photo of the same scene. She can be pretty demanding, that little bitch.



Finally, we got to our destination. A Hungarian author was reading from his book in front of this great English bookshop near Notre Dame. My pap smear was all ears as the man spoke about book burning, poetry and Hungary before the war. At times, I started to drift off, but not my lil pap. Turns out she is quite the little history buff.



To polish off a great night, I treated her to a complimentary glass of rosé. I had sort of assumed she would be more of a red, Cotes-du-Rhone kind of girl, but she slurped her wine down in three gulps. Nobody ever said pap smears were classy.



On our way home, I gave pap a little pat through the cloth bag she was riding in. I felt that under such short notice, I had shown her a pretty decent time. We didn’t meet any men, but perhaps that would be for another time.



As I went to sleep, I felt comforted knowing pap was right next to me, just snoring away. I tried to keep the fan on her so she wouldn’t start disintegrating. Was I supposed to keep her in the fridge? The doctor hadn’t been too precise when handing her over.



The next morning was rough. Pap and I both knew we had to say goodbye; that we might never see each other again. But I promised her that her trip to the lab would be extremely exciting. And of course she believed me. Pap smears don’t get out that much.



On my way home from the post office, I looked in my day planner to see what the day had in store for me. To my horror, I saw that I had scheduled my first-ever appointment with a shrink. I guess we would have to talk about my troubled past during my second visit.

Riding The Wave Of French Feminism

The following is a contribution written by: Colette Davidson. The same post is also posted on her blog, Kolet ink*. Colette lives in France and decided to write about feminism in her country. Thanks for the article, Colette! :)

Riding The Wave Of French Feminism

I have a bone to pick with Alain Soral, French sociologist and ex-Front National party member. It’s not his pretension or even his manipulation of his “followers” that bothers me, but instead his definition and loathing of modern feminism.
Soral claims there are two types of feminists: the “freaked out” feminist like Simone de Beauvoir, and the “bitches” such as Elisabeth Badinter. He claims that the modern feminist model only pertains to the plight of upper middle-class white women. At his debate in Bordeaux last Saturday, he openly admitted to detesting the “American neo-feminist.” I hate to break it to Alain, but being an American female today - or any female at all - means being a feminist. After all, what sort of gender would we be if we didn’t fight for our equal rights within a world run by men?


French feminist Simone de Beauvoir, circa 1955

In a televised program I watched recently, Soral claimed that the reason fewer homeless women were on the street than men was because they liberally took advantage of their ability to get government aid - and subsequently housing - by having a child. Do you mean to tell me that if I shoot myself up with drugs, run away from my family or lose my job and home, that I can simply have a baby and everything will turn out okay?
The idea in itself is ridiculous. This goes right along with those (mostly men or the religious right) who believe that birth control or the morning-after pill actually condone having unprotected, careless sex. Only a handful of women are dumb to the fact that having a baby is a lifetime commitment, not one to be taken lightly and certainly not a way to get out of a sticky situation. The fact is, having a baby usually is the most sticky situation a woman can find herself in. No matter how involved a man is in a pregnancy, those 9 months can only be fully experienced by the woman herself.
I’m not alone in opposing Soral’s views on the French homeless woman of the 21st century. On France Inter today, reporters announced the completion of a study as to the greatest risks of a woman on the street. Far and above was the issue of rape and sexual assault. So when Soral says that the reason we don’t see as many homeless women out there is because they are living comfortably in their government-owned apartments with their new babies, I have to disagree. Because the risks of being a woman and on the street are so high, most find shelter elsewhere - be that with friends, a boyfriend (even if he is abusive, this may be the more likable option) or at a homeless shelter. Being homeless is scary enough without bringing a child into the mix.
I think before anyone talks about feminism in France, the French language must change with the times. France has come a long way in terms of women’s rights, and soars high above U.S. legislation on the subject. French women get maternity leave for up to 16 weeks. If a French woman so chooses, she can take up to three years off (unpaid) from her job and come back to it afterwards with total job security. And she can ask for a one-month vacation from her job within three years of having her child, and be paid approximately 500 euros by the government-run CAF.


Gloria Steinem has been the face of American feminism for decades

So, then why are we still using terms such as “Husband and woman (mari et femme)” or “My woman (ma nana)” to refer to a man’s female counterpart? Of course these are but few feeble examples. But France has long explored ways to remove the sexism from its language and come up dry. In 1993, the University of California at Berkeley actually studied the relationship between the French language and gender in a course entitled, “Sexual Difference, Gender and the French Language.” As the course outlines:
“Though there is no necessary correlation between gender, as a grammatical category and sexism in language, for a variety of reasons, cultural as well as linguistic, it has been difficult for French, particularly in France (in contrast to francophone communities outside the Hexagon), to comfortably institute nonsexist usage.”
It seems, since 1993, that not much as been resolved. And Alain Soral’s sexist rhetoric certainly isn’t helping things. While Americans are already onto “third-wave feminism” (a movement led by Rebecca Walker, which challenges second-wave feminism and focuses on the rights of the non-white, wealthy female), the F-word is still a gros mot in France today and linked largely to homosexuality. It rests heavily in literary theory and philosophy instead of practice. As the scholar Elizabeth Wright points out, “none of these [well-known] French feminists align themselves with the feminist movement as it appeared in the Anglophone world.”
Feminism in France needs to start with women themselves. I wouldn’t say the situation here is grave, but it’s certainly urgent.