IN JULY 2010, the French Ministry of Education announced changes for the academic year 2011–12 in the national curriculum for high school sex education. By the end of September 2011, 80 deputies from the National Assembly and 113 senators (roughly one-third of all senators) had sent letters of protest to the Minister of Education, Luc Chatel—and not for the reasons you might expect. There were potentially controversial new sections in the curriculum, including information on obtaining sexual pleasure along with descriptions of a panorama of sexual practices, but these were not the objects of their scorn. Rather, the letters were sent mostly in protest against the teaching of gender as a social construction and to plead for this new section to be removed.
Sex education has been a part of the French high school curriculum since 1974. And since then, as the historian Tamara Chaplin has pointed out, the Ministry of Education [has distinguished]between information (understood as the biological and physiological facts of sexual activity) and education (that which confers psychological, affective, social, spiritual and moral meaning onto human sexual behavior). And whereas information remains within the state’s purview, education—given its divisive content—is still relegated to extracurricular activities, whether coordinated by parents, or under the careful ministrations of religious leaders, or (more uncomfortably and mostly by default) relinquished to young people themselves. The problematic guiding presumption, of course, is that one actually can separate these two domains (Chaplin, 2011).
The most recent debates over changes to sex education curriculum are basically split along these lines, with defenders of the reform claiming that the new curriculum is merely presenting objective information and critics arguing that the ideas are normative, and thus a form of education.
The notion of essential sexual difference runs deep in France, even among some strands of feminism, particularly those associated with the theoreticians Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. However, what intrigues me most about the recent debates over whether French textbooks should describe gender as socially constructed is to see how often this notion is being referred to as an “American” idea in order to discredit it. As a number of recent works have pointed out, the use of “America” in France has generally been more of a rhetorical strategy than a reflection of reality, since “America” is a word that can be filled with many different meanings, or to borrow the terminology of Lévi-Strauss: “America” is a floating signifier. With regard to the use of “America” in discussions of gender and sexuality in France, the French sociologist Eric Fassin has referred to the rhetorical strategy of the American “scarecrow,” such that by associating one side of a debate with the “American position,” it becomes impossible to agree with it without being suspected of betraying France. This is especially the case when discussing issues of gender or sexuality. Fassin explains that “in the same way that one could say in the United States that communism is ‘un-American,’ in France, sexual politics seem ‘un-French,’ to the benefit of diatribes against ‘political correctness’” (Fassin, 2003).
To illustrate the use of the American scarecrow, Fassin provides the example of how anti-Americanism has fueled antifeminism in France: “the [French] rhetorical strategy of associating feminism with [American] puritanism is telling: in France, people see any politicizing of sexuality as a product of moralism à l’américaine, something foreign to French culture, which we like to believe is more ‘sophisticated.’” With regard to the 2000 law on “parité” (a law that sought to increase the representation of women in political offices), for example, the French essayist Elisabeth Badinter denounced “American-style quotas,” a clear example of the American scarecrow, since quotas are not even allowed in the U.S. for affirmative action purposes (since the Supreme Court ruled against any affirmative action program based on quotas in 1978). With regard to homosexuality, Frédéric Martel’s 1996 book Le Rose et le noir concluded that French gays and lesbians should embrace the French republican model of assimilation and reject American-style identity politics. The former he associated with the French model of social integration, the latter with American-style “ghettoization” of minorities.
So what do the new textbooks actually say? One states that ”you learn how to become a man or woman according to your environment and upraising. There is another more personal aspect to sexuality: sexual orientation. I can be a man and be attracted to women. I can also feel 100% manly and be attracted to men” (Rotman, 2011). Another book says that “biological sex identifies us as male or female, but that does not necessarily qualify us as masculine or feminine. This gender identity, constructed throughout life, through a constant interaction between biology and socio-cultural context, is nevertheless decisive in our positioning relative to others” (“Orientation sexuelle,” 2011). A third textbook uses similar language: “gender identity is the state of feeling totally man or woman. And it is not as simple as it might appear. … Indeed, one learns to become a man or a woman according to one’s environment, since we do not raise a little boy the same way we raise a little girl, we do not dress them the same way, we do not give them the same toys” (Rotman, 2011). From such excerpts, it is probably not immediately apparent how fears of American influence could in any way be relevant. Yet, these concerns were operating just below the surface.
In their criticism of the recent sex education reform, opponents all made a point of highlighting the extent to which the notion of gender as a social construction is an American import. For the journalist Gérard Leclerc, one of the most vocal critics of the reform, “this is about imposing an ideology fabricated in the United States, whose philosophical character is militant, intrusive and apparent” (Leclerc, 2011). Letters to the Minister of Education from members of National Assembly used similar language to criticize the reform and were united in their efforts to associate the reform with the United States. (Indeed, several representatives used Leclerc’s language verbatim, including Gérard Menuel, Yannick Favennec, Christian Vanneste, Dominique Dord, Renaud Muselier, Richard Mallié, and Philippe Armand Martin.) Representatives Dominique Souchet and Bernard Depierre, in a written question to the Minister of Education, explained that “the teaching of human sexuality has been redefined through the prism of the theory of ‘gender,’ an ideological construction with no scientific basis that was developed over several years by certain sociologists, mostly American.” In their letter, representatives Philippe Meunier and Jacques Remiller said that “according to this theory, which originated in the United States, gender identity is not a biological fact but a social construction.” Representative Gérard Bailly’s comment was nearly identical: “This theory, which comes from the United States, decisively affirms that gender identity is not a biological fact but a social construction.” Clearly, in all these letters the claim that the concept of gender comes from the U.S. says little about the validity of the concept itself and thus adds little to any debate, unless the “American scarecrow” effect is operating here.
The power of the American scarecrow in this context meant that even supporters of the curricular change needed to respond to the rhetorical force of the scarecrow by insisting instead that the ideas presented are actually French. Richard Descoings, president of Paris’ Institute of Political Studies, or “Sciences Po,” the first French college to make gender studies a requirement, was a vocal defender of the reform (until his death in April of this year): “Is this a new question or one that comes from the United States? … The field of ‘Gender Studies’ did not invent the notion that society constructs the roles assigned to men and women. Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex came out in 1949 during the Fourth Republic) was not American and was not part of the ideological movement condemned today. … None of this is new nor does it come from the United States, but from a field of inquiry that has developed tremendously in France since Durkheim: sociology” (Girard, 2011). Descoings certainly has a point in light of the extraordinary influence that French theorists like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida have had on social constructionism in the U.S., most especially in the realm of GLBT studies.
Eric Fassin also argued against the association of the reform with American ideas—this time, not because the ideas are actually French, but because these ideas are part of scholarship from all over the world and France needs to catch up: “work on gender has already found a place in secondary education and in research, and not just in the United States, nor just in Europe. It is true that France has resisted for a long time, in the name of national specificity, but intellectual life does not stop at borders: the dynamism of this field stems from its international circulation, from Latin America, to Eastern Europe, via India and to the rest of the world” (Fassin, 2011). Even the textbooks themselves hint at possible French origins. The sections in all three of the textbooks dedicated to gender are titled, “Becoming a Man or a Woman,” a more-or-less obvious wink to Simone DeBeauvoir’s “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Anti-Americanism is perhaps an expected feature of French public education, at least according to a study conducted by Barbara Lefebvre and Eve Bonnivard in 2004, which suggested that French textbooks are anti-American to the point that French high school students might be led to wonder, “could it be that all evils in the world are caused either indirectly or directly by the actions of the United States?” (Lefebvre and Bonnivard, 2005). It is true that 2004 reflected a high point in anti-American sentiment in France, and it is reasonable to assume that things have calmed down since then. Yet this most recent curricular change in France’s sex education program provides an example of how anxieties over American influence continue to play a role in French public discourse. While it is true that anti-Americanism may be less apparent in French schoolbooks than it was when Lefebvre and Bonnivard examined them back in 2004, the debates over the sex education curriculum provide evidence of the continued rhetorical power of the “American scarecrow,” particularly in discussions of sexuality and gender.
References
Chaplin, Tamara. “Orgasm without Limits: May ’68 and the History of Sex Education in Modern France.” May ’68: Rethinking France’s Last Revolution. Palgrave, 2011.
Fabre, Clarisse and Eric Fassin. Liberté, égalité, sexualités: Actualité politique des questions sexuelles. Belfond (Paris), 2003.
Fassin, Eric. “Les sciences de la vie et de la terre sont présentées avec leurs prolongements sociaux.” www.larecherche.fr, 2011.
Girard, Qunetin. “Manuels de sciences: ‘c’est une polémique créée de toutes pièces.’” Libération, September 2, 2011.
Leclerc, Gérard. “Objection de conscience.” www.france-catholique.fr, May 30, 2011.
Lefebvre, Barbara and Eve Bonnivard. Elèves sous influence. Audibert (Paris), 2005.
Rotman, Charlotte. “Manuels scolaires : le mauvais procès des bon chic bon genre.” Libération, August 31, 2011.
Scott Gunther is associate professor of French studies at Wellesley College and author of The Elastic Closet: A History of Homosexuality in France, 1942–Present (2009).
