Men are from Mars, Frenchmen Are From Venus? Gender Stereotyping in France vs. Australia

Last night, at a dinner with French expat women put on by Melbourne Accueil, one of the women commented that, 'In Australia, the men are super macho, like Italians. Men never want to speak to me. They don’t flirt with me, like men in the workplace in France would.' This got me thinking about gender in France and Oz. How does my French husband Maxime come across in Australia, for instance? For a start, his name doesn't help him pretend to be a 'super macho' Aussie:


‘Hello, is Max there please?’ a voice on the phone asked me one day.

‘Who?’ I said.

‘Max,’ the voice said.

‘I’m sorry, there’s no one here by that name,’ I said. ‘Oh, wait a minute! That’s my husband!’

I’m glad to say this embarrassing exchange only happened the once, although I still do a double take when anyone calls Maxime ‘Max’. Maxime has introduced himself to some people as Max because he has gotten sick of being called a girl – he’d receive letters addressed to Maxine with the title ‘Mrs.’ And I don’t know how many times I’ve had to say, ‘It’s not MaxiNe, it’s MaxiMe. I know it has an ‘e’ on the end but he’s still not a girl.’ Which is why Maxime sometimes finds it simpler to tell people his name is Max.

But some might think the girly charge justified. I mean, what self-respecting, appropriately hirsute bloke goes to the footy and drinks pear cider? (See The Frog and the Footy) What kind of man likes going to the ballet, is happy to eat quiche and goes into a pub and orders a glass of pink moscato? A Frenchman. Or, more specifically, my Frenchman. I should point out, though, that I have not the smallest issue with the above, and neither does he.

But since we’ve moved to Australia, I’ve become aware of male stereotypes again, having completely forgotten them in France. The blokey and jokey stereotype of the Aussie male. And it’s made me realise that the taboos on men here are really quite broad. Like the taboos on women in France. Allow me to digress:

In France, it seemed to me that beauty was a woman’s highest attribute. I got this impression from the way French women starved themselves to be thin (literally. Frenchwomen don’t get fat because they don’t eat, I don’t care what that French Women Don’t Get Fat book says. I've watched countless gaunt, hollow-cheeked hostesses not eat their own meals, on the pretext of being too busy serving them.) And there's the way Frenchwomen dress – immaculate; feminine; lots of makeup. There were other little things like the fact that at dinner, only men were allowed to pour wine and women had strictly no interest in sport. But what brought home the narrowness of the stereotype and the central importance of beauty was what happened to me during pregnancy: 

Maxime thought my gyny was great because she was French (my previous one had been Swiss). I thought she was less great because she said I had put on too much weight during my pregnancy. I was scolded until I wondered whether we had mistakenly gone to an obesity clinic. How fitting that I originally took the French word ‘grossesse’ to mean fatness instead of pregnancy. Then the doctor gave me a pregnancy pack which told me all about how to keep myself as beautiful as possible with the application of a battalion of creams. All of this was a bit unsettling. Wasn’t it meant to be about having a baby, somewhere along the line? I didn’t really consider my appearance to be of much importance at this juncture. All this relates, I later read, to the French female’s lack of self-confidence. Her sense of self-worth plummets if not propped up with a few creams and slimming teas ‘minceur’.

‘Frenchwomen are not comfortable with their bodies,’ had been Maxime’s analysis.

(I decided I wouldn’t question him too deeply on his experience in this area.)

French men, on the other hand, seemed to be free to behave as they liked. They could eat and drink what they liked and lots of it, and could dance and hate sport with impunity. And at parties, men and women mixed, whereas in Oz – something I’d also forgotten in the years away – men tend to seek out other blokes and women talk to women. Maxime doesn't want to hang with the blokes - he says he often prefers to talk to women. No wonder Frenchmen have a certain reputation with us Anglo Saxons!

Happily, the stereotypes have posed no real problem to us. Maxime blithely tramples Aussie male taboos here, and I steadfastly ignored female French taboos in France (i.e., continued to stuff my face when pregnant). And it was fine … except that my in-laws thought I was some sort of barbarian. Maxime hasn't suffered here either so far, despite his girly drinking habits. The only issue is that my brother-in-law is terrified Maxime will kiss him. Maxime gives my father a kiss on each cheek to say hello each time he sees him, after which he loves to walk up to the brother-in-law with a big grin on his face.

‘Don’t you want to give Maxime a kiss?’ I'll ask my brother-in-law with a smile.

The brother-in-law will then put up his hands and back away, saying, ‘No no no! I’m good, thanks, Max.’

Ah well. In Australia, maybe Maxime will have to stick to kissing women. I don’t think he’ll really mind.
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