She said what?! Why feminism is still relevant

My December piece for Discordia, She said what?! Why feminism is still relevant, was written in response to comments by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who had claimed "In my generation we don't need to be feminist".
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She said what?! Why feminism is still relevant

December 2012

A collective gasp resounded across social media last week, after former French “first lady” Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was quoted as saying "In my generation we don't need to be feminist".

A torrent of witty and impassioned comments descended. French senator Laurence Rossignol added her voice, tweeting: "For as long as I get asked if I am the senator's assistant, the coming generation will need feminism".

While Bruni-Sarkozy’s remark may be viewed as ill-advised and clumsily delivered, it wasn’t so easy for women to merely brush it aside. On an international scale, Bruni-Sarkozy is a prominent woman of influence. What many no doubt found problematic was that this person 

of wealth and advantage was attempting to speak for them – an entire generation of women.

While Bruni-Sarkozy herself concedes (on her website) that “I was fortunate to be born into a privileged family”, the 44-year-old seems somewhat blind to her privilege, if not a little conflicted by it. In her recent remarks to Vogue which ignited the Twittersphere, she also claimed “I am a true bourgeoise”. But regarding life as the president’s wife and her husband’s exit from office, she said "It was a beautiful adventure, but today I just want to go back to being a citizen like any other".

Bruni-Sarkozy isn’t a typical French citizen, or woman. Born into an affluent family in Italy, she was heiress to her grandfather’s tyre empire and her family lived in a state of luxury. Bruni-Sarkozy was given access to the best schools in Europe, attending boarding school in Switzerland and university in Paris. The wife of former French president Nicholas Sarkozy, Bruni-Sarkozy is a white woman of high social standing.

In the 1990s, Bruni-Sarkozy was a high-fashion model, walking for many of the top couture houses. She was listed among the 20 highest paid models in 1998. Catapulted to a lucrative international modelling career in her late teens, Bruni-Sarkozy has never known the pain of student loans, the week to week struggle of paying rent on a meagre income, nor the challenges of raising and feeding a family on an average wage.  

  

Additionally, her husband has a significant personal fortune, and was also born into vast wealth.

In Bruni-Sarkozy’s adopted country of France, poverty is on the rise. In 2011 it was reported that 13.5% of the population live under the poverty threshold.

A recent report by charity Secours Catholique revealed that women and immigrants were the hardest hit groups in France in the wake of the financial crisis. Women comprise 57% of those seeking assistance from the charity, up 10% from a decade ago.  

Approximately 17% of women in the 27 EU countries are living in poverty. European women earn, on average, 14-17% less than men. The European Social Watch Report 2010 claimed that “across a range of indicators in the labour market and in social protection, the structural causes of poverty have a disproportionate impact on women”.

Globally, women constitute 70% of the world’s poorest people. They hold only 10% of the world’s wealth and own 1% of the world’s land. 

To her credit, Bruni-Sarkozy does undertake some philanthropic work and she also supports gay marriage, along with several other socially progressive issues.  

However, in the stately lunch meetings with high profile figures, to discuss issues such as literacy, poverty and female mortality, she can maintain a detachment from the reality of the issues tabled. These talks are usually hosted in luxury locations. Arriving well fed and immaculately dressed, Bruni-Sarkozy can slip back into her extravagant lifestyle at the conclusion of the event.

It can be easy to see why Bruni-Sarkozy has been able to overlook feminism. She was born into wealth; consequently she has not confronted the challenges that many other women of her generation have, in their pursuit of education and raising a family in a tough economic climate. It is hard to overstate the level of freedom that financial independence can afford.

For many years Bruni-Sarkozy worked in an industry which paid her exorbitant sums of money for her physical appearance. At its very core, the fashion industry is anti-feminist. Models are prized for their (apparently fleeting) youthful beauty, and are forced to adhere to near impossible standards in order to be successful. This industry, which relentlessly manufactures the rigorous incarnation of the “ideal woman”, bankrolled Bruni-Sarkozy’s lavish lifestyle for years.   

Bruni-Sarkozy is not an ideal spokesperson for her generation of women, as it appears that the complexities of their lives have soared high above her head. Globally, she is one of a select few that revels in the top income bracket, while many women of her generation languish firmly at subsistence level.  

If she is truly to comprehend poverty, a cause for which she campaigns, then she must understand how structural economic conditions and traditions often serve to disadvantage women – whether in Europe or poverty-plagued developing countries.  

Maybe then she will realise that feminism is still germane for the women of her generation, and also for the girls and young women of today.

Postscript: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy issued an apology for her recent remarks on feminism, claiming that the statement “poorly translates my thoughts”, and saying of feminists "I admire their bravery a lot, but I have chosen to commit myself elsewhere".