October 28, 2013

Why so few great Frenchwomen on the left?

Self Portrait, Vigée Le Brun
As I mentioned below, the Socialist president of France is looking to honor a great Frenchwoman in the government's Panthéon in Paris. The frontrunners are said to be Olympe de Gouges and Germaine Tillion, whose names don't exactly ring bells.

A reader points out that my nominee -- Joan of Arc -- wouldn't fly because the Panthéon is the Left's shrine, and St. Joan is a saint. Thus, three obvious giants -- Descartes, Pascal, and Pasteur -- can't be in the Panthéon because they were Catholics.

Still, you would think that the French Socialist government would be able to come up with a better list than Gouges and Tillion. After all, in contrast to most cultures around the world, the French have long celebrated the feminine element. Paris (or Versailles) has been the dream destination for women for hundreds of years. The reason the Statue of Liberty is of a woman is because she's French.

But, numerous famous Frenchwomen (e.g., Coco Chanel) can't be admitted because they weren't on the Left. The number of famous women in France during the Occupation who had admiring German officers as their protectors is a long one. (It even includes Gertrude Stein.)

This shortage of great Frenchwomen on the Left is not a coincidence. The question may have first been raised by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), court painter to Marie Antoinette. She is usually considered the greatest female artist of her age, the John Singer Sargent of her time. Vigée Le Brun lived a long life, much of it in exile, and met everybody in Europe.

As an ardent royalist, though, Vigée Le Brun is ineligible for Pantheonization.

In her memoirs in the 1830s, she pointed out that after the stable, hierarchical 18th Century in which women at the top of society had flourished (think of the great salons that intellectual Frenchwomen had kept in Paris), the Revolution of 1789 had much strengthened the masculinist element within European culture -- politics and war came to the forefront, and women's concerns were depreciated. The new era was one where the dominant impulses were neoclassical rather than rococo, Beethoven rather than Mozart, David rather than Vigée Le Brun.

Mentioning the historic role of Parisian salons reminds me of the single most mysterious and fascinating thing I've ever read about the social history of Silicon Valley. With the media world currently up in arms about Twitter being run by stale pale males, it's worth recalling Jaron Lanier's 2011 reminiscence:
There were precious few girl nerds at the time. There was one who programmed a hit arcade game called Centipede for the first video game company, Atari, and a few others. There were, however, extraordinary female figures who served as the impresarios of social networking before there was an internet. It still seems wrong to name them, because it isn't clear if I would be talking about their private lives or their public contributions: I don't know how to draw a line.  
These irresistible creatures would sometimes date alpha nerds, but mostly brought the act of socialising into a society where it probably would not have occurred otherwise. A handful of them had an extraordinary, often unpaid degree of influence over what research was done, which companies came to be, who worked at them and what products were developed.  
That they are usually undescribed in histories of Silicon Valley is just another instance of what a fiction history can be. The advent of social networking software and oceans of digital memories of bits exchanged between people has only shifted the type of fiction we accept, not the degree of infidelity.

Anybody know who he's talking about?

I'm a complete outsider, so I probably don't know at all. Among public figures, I'd probably guess Esther Dyson (physcist Freeman Dyson's daughter) and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen (daughter of Silicon Valley land baron John Arrillaga and wife of web browser inventor / venture capitalist Marc Andreessen), but, presumably, some of the women Lanier are referring to are unknown to nobodies like me.

41 comments:

Bill said...

In her memoirs in the 1830s, she pointed out that after the stable, hierarchical 18th Century in which women at the top of society had flourished (think of the great salons that intellectual Frenchwomen had kept in Paris), the Revolution of 1789 had much strengthened the masculinist element within European culture -- politics and war came to the forefront, and women's concerns were depreciated. The new era was one of Beethoven rather than Mozart, David rather than Vigée Le Brun.

She's absolutely right. Modern feminism was in large part a reaction against the French Revolution, which explicitly marginalized women.

Women flourish in conservative, patriarchal societies. Unfortunately, most men do not. What really gets me is the blindness of the contemporary "left," which can't see the profound conservatism it has come to represent over the last couple decades.

Unknown said...

Jaron Lanier is incoherent. Why doesn't he name some. At least Meg Whitman, but she's a republican. Women in SV have the same problem that Larry Summers pointed out. And maybe France too.

Steve Sailer said...

Because he's not talking about female CEO's, he's talking about Silicon Valley society hostesses who, say, introduce an ex-lover with money to an asocial engineer of genius.

Dave Pinsen said...

"That they are usually undescribed in histories of Silicon Valley is just another instance of what a fiction history can be. The advent of social networking software and oceans of digital memories of bits exchanged between people has only shifted the type of fiction we accept, not the degree of infidelity."

It also indirectly highlights what a fiction electronic social networking can be. It isn't entirely a fiction -- there is some overlap with the real world -- but it's notable how relatively little time Silicon Valley heavyweights spend on social media. The most impactful connections will always be made offline, in real life.

Simon in London said...

The French Left seems markedly anti-feminine, yes. I think you're right that the strong femine role in traditional French culture back to at least the Middle Ages must be a big reason for that. Courtly Love was a medieval French invention, one that exalted the feminine for the first time in European culture. Frenchwomen have a lot to lose from French Leftism - they lose the feminine mystique that is exalted in French culture.

British or German women don't have this pre-eminent cultural role and status, so Leftism is much less immediately threatening, although Leftism is still unbalancedly masculine and still has costs - the triumph of cultural Marxism in Blair's Britain made a second female British Prime Minister almost unimaginable. I don't know if Germany is different, or if Merkel is a last Ostie gasp of feminine power.

Anonymous said...

There is a famous story about the pre-war French Premier Leon Blum being asked at one point in the mid- to late-30s how he, as leader of a "Popular Front" government (a coalition of Socialists and Communists), could continue to do something as non-"progressive" as deny women the vote (Frenchwomen did not get suffrage until after 1945, a gift from the rightist de Gaulle).

In an unguarded answer, he replied: "Because they'd vote us out of office!"

The number of famous women in France during the Occupation who had admiring German officers as their protectors is a long one. (It even includes Gertrude Stein.)

As well as the African-American proto-Beyoncé Josephine Baker, even though Baker repaid her Teutonic protectors by helping the Resistance as far as possible.

Anonymous said...

Valerie Britt, with the "A List"

kgaard said...

I'm confused ... what is the dynamic by which lefty societies become masculinist? If you look at the US left today there are loads of lefties at the top. Ditto LatAm leftism (Dilma Rousseff, the Chilean lady, and of course Kooky Kirchner). Even in France Segolene Royal almost got the top spot.

I don't disagree with the concept that leftism keeps women down, but I'm curious to see it spelled out ...

Steve Sailer said...

"what is the dynamic by which lefty societies become masculinist?"

Chopping the Queen's head off.

Unknown said...

"Because he's not talking about female CEO's, he's talking about Silicon Valley society hostesses who, say, introduce an ex-lover with money to an asocial engineer of genius."

I lived there most of my life and a lot of what Lanier is doing is straining at gnats. The culture here is work your butt off and hope to get lucky. Not much more than that particularly in the early stages. I'd like to see him substantiate rather than wind stems.

Anonymous said...

"what is the dynamic by which lefty societies become masculinist?"

Chopping the Queen's head off.


Good point. Note that Louis XVI and the French aristocracy right before the Revolution were pretty effete and decadent. This wasn't just propaganda either. Louis XVI was chubby, loved eating, didn't get Marie Antoinette pregnant for a long time, etc. The middle class, urban bourgeoisie that led the Revolution on the other hand were descended from relatively recently prosperous, self-made men.

Anonymous said...

Segolene Royal headed the French socialist party, popped out four kids and still looked pretty damn good in a bikini at age 53.

http://s31.photobucket.com/user/Candor7/media/segolene_royal_bikini_photo.jpg.html

fondatori said...

The way I have heard it was that until contemporary tomes boys in France were taught in, basically, 'public' schools while girls were taught in Catholic schools. So boys got liberalized and secularized while girls were instilled with tradition.

Mark Plus said...

Re: "boys in France were taught in, basically, 'public' schools while girls were taught in Catholic schools. So boys got liberalized and secularized while girls were instilled with tradition."

I can see some value in the idea of letting men take or leave religion as a matter of personal conviction, while cynically encouraging religiosity in girls as an additional constraint on their inclinations towards promiscuity. That might make for more stable marriages and healthier families, though the fathers would probably take their sons aside for discussions about religion that they wouldn't have with their daughters.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't have bothered with roccoco, but rocccoco?

Anonymous said...

Re: Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

Who wears two crosses around their neck, especially someone from that strata of society?

kgaard said...

A muted "wow" on that Segolene Royal picture. I would venture that there is not one American woman alive at 53 with 4 kids who looks that presentable. That's a good argument against GMO foods, among other things ...

hardly said...

conservative traditional societies allow feminine women to flourish, since success is gained by appealing to the men at the top. Leftist societies allow masculinized women and lesbians to flourish.

iveurese said...

Simone de Beauvoir?. Not long enough ago?

Anonymous said...

Madame Defarge?

Auntie Analogue said...


Another great Frenchwoman artist who will not be admitted to the Panthéon is Édith Piaf, who'd sung paeans to the Foreign Legion in "Le Fanion de la Légion" and "Mon Légionnaire", to Napoléon's haggard troops returning from defeat in Russia in "Les Grognards"; and her late in life smash hit "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" was embraced by a great many of the French soldiers who'd fought in the Algerian War.

Piaf was a Catholic, but because of her numerous well-publicized love affairs (including one with the married pied noir boxing champion Marcel Cerdan) Rome denied her a funeral mass before her remains were interred in Père-Lachaise cemetery.

rho said...

Both France and Silicon Valley are highly provincial. Cultivators and artists need curators to bring their wares to market, a skill largely foreign to cultivators and artists.

Put another way, it takes a 'sperg to build a social network, but it takes a social butterfly to make it relevant.

Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget is a good read.

Anonymous said...

This coincides with my accidental discovery of YouTube clips of the esteemed French actor Fabrice Lucchini lambasting the Left on French TV. Unfortunately none of them were subtitled. Any iStevers know the story on this?

Simon in London said...

>>hardly said...
conservative traditional societies allow feminine women to flourish, since success is gained by appealing to the men at the top. Leftist societies allow masculinized women and lesbians to flourish.<<

By that standard France is extremely traditional and non-Leftist! I don't think I've ever seen such a thing as a masculinised Frenchwoman. And having affairs with the President seems a normal way for French female politicians to get ahead.

Anonymous said...

"Note that Louis XVI and the French aristocracy right before the Revolution were pretty effete and decadent."

Some where some weren't. Something tells me you wouldn't have picked up your ancestral saber and lead your neighboring peasants and tradesman into battle against the Revolutionary government like the leaders of the Vendee did. The thugs that led the revolution were a particularly industrious and rapacious bunch. In comparison anyone else is going to look effete.

Typically effete men don't go to the guillotine like Louis did. He was a overgrown boy in many ways (indeed its likely he hadn't even been taught what sex was by his marriage night) but he was not effette or decadent. He was pious somewhat dull but basically decent monarch in over his head. It is so funny how the bloodhounds of "Mossad propaganda" on this sight become practically credulous when it comes to accusations against any one with more status than they.


"I can see some value in the idea of letting men take or leave religion as a matter of personal conviction, while cynically encouraging religiosity in girls as an additional constraint on their inclinations towards promiscuity. That might make for more stable marriages and healthier families, though the fathers would probably take their sons aside for discussions about religion that they wouldn't have with their daughters."

Perfect iSteve comment. Hey guys let's re-orient society in such a way that my wife won't keep cheating on me. Look if you keep getting cuckholded don't come looking to the Church to bail you out. There is no natural female inclination to promiscuity that is absurd.

Anonymous said...


In this respect and on the basis of morphology alone, it is curious that there is a marked disparity between Anglo-Saxon and French and South European women. For although women of commanding intelligence have always abounded in France and Southern Europe, these regions have never, as Weininger points out, 2 "had a successful woman's movement," and almost all their women have a short leg-trunk ratio compared with English and North American women.


http://www.anthonymludovici.com/ew_04.htm

James said...

Well, as has already been mentioned, there's Simone de Beauvoir, of course.

Another possible leftist Frenchwoman - I'm surprised nobody has suggested this one - is Françoise Giroud (1916-2003), who wrote various not-particularly-significant screenplays and biographies but whose main significance came after De Gaulle's 1958 comeback, as magazine editor and 1970s cabinet minister. Stridently pro-abortion in the latter capacity, along with her even less agreeable fellow pol Simone Veil. (You could construct an entire Kevin-Macdonald-style conspiracy theory from Giroud's and Veil's shared Jewish background.)

Perhaps Louise Michel, "grande dame of anarchy", would be a less depressing Panthéon prospect than Giroud:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Michel

Anonymous said...

Having the experience of spending a small amount of time with Jaron Lanier, it's doubtful any female social connections came within shouting distance. Leaving off names is merely a convenient acknowledgement of this.

el supremo said...

"Note that Louis XVI and the French aristocracy right before the Revolution were pretty effete and decadent."

This is a pretty much a myth (created by Whig propaganda) - a small slice of the upper nobility that hung around the court wasted its time in various fashions and petty intrigues, but the vast bulk of the French aristocracy lived in the provinces, where they managed their lands, fought in the army (often in the front lines as the equivalent of today's 2nd lieutenants), or were scattered around the globe as the vanguard of France's colonial empire.

The number of second sons of the nobility killed or wounded at the heads of their regiments during 18th century France's many wars should put to rest the myth of "decadent" French nobility. I can't see the children of America's current elite pointing a sword as they lead troops at slow march into the face of massed Prussian infantry, in contrast.

rightsaidfred said...

Claudine Tencin should fit the bill: she slept around, and left her extant child on the steps of a church a few days after birth. The poor child had to grow up in 15th century French orphanages. What hope did he have to learn anything?

Mark Plus said...

"Perfect iSteve comment. Hey guys let's re-orient society in such a way that my wife won't keep cheating on me. Look if you keep getting cuckholded don't come looking to the Church to bail you out. There is no natural female inclination to promiscuity that is absurd."

No, I actually had the daughters' moral character in mind when I wrote that. Do many fathers want to see their daughters grow up into sluts? Refer to the links about the social science of female promiscuity as a divorce risk factor in Randall Parker's post about Sluttology post.

Belisarius said...

Feminism is an outgrowth of the N Euro Protestant form of leftism, so the lack of French feminist heroines (or is it heroes now?) is not surprising. Feminism is as much an example of the cultural imperialism of les anglos-saxons as fast food and the preference for large corporations over family businesses.

That being said, I can't think of any Frenchwoman that was more influential intellectually in her time than Mme de Stael. However, she opposed the idea- popular at the time- that the French Revolution was a revolt of native Gauls against Frankish nobility, so maybe enthusiastic Germanophilia is a disqualifier after a century and a half or so of military and economic humiliation by the Germans.

Somewhat OT, but it's fascinating (and scary) to watch Leftism take on the characteristics of a state religion (the first attempt was by Robespierre) and to watch its followers take on the characteristics of devout Middle Ages peasants. Maybe in the future serfs will make pilgrimages to the Pantheon to pray to St. Vigee to intercede on their behalf with Mother Earth to bring more rain for their wilting crop of arugula.

BB753 said...

There´s still a strong undercurrent of "légitimistes" and other old style monarchists on the French Right. Deep down, they hate the République with a vengeance, because of its leftist character.
Some are Gaullistes, some trend Front National. Some are traditionalist Roman Catholics, followers of Monseigneur Lefèvre. Together with some residual Pétainistes and "Fachos", they are the great political losers since the victory of Louis Philippe and all the barebreasted incarnations of the République and Marianne,the Bastille mystique and all that, long after the original Napoleaon died.
Together, they comprise 30% of the electorate. Joan of Arc remains their symbol, and as such, she´s streng verboten at the Panthéon. (Whose original name is: "Panthéon des hommes illustres")

Ray Sawhill said...

Frenchwomen -- unlike a lot of Anglo women -- have the knack of enjoying being women. For them, life as a woman is about maximizing their pleasure as women. As a consequence, feminism hasn't been anything like the force in France that it's been in the U.S. If your present arrangements suit you pretty well, why spend a lot of time (that you might otherwise spend on affairs, clothes, households, makeup, bébés, vacations, food, even careers) agitating for reform?

Douglas Knight said...

At some point before women's suffrage, say, 1900, everyone believed that women would vote right-wing, didn't they? Was that true at first?

Anonymous said...

French women are culturally very sophisticated human beings. They like being women, and they like being treated like women.

Why compete with a bunch of boorishly egotistical men - especially when those boorish men put them on a pedestal.

France is a country with mostly smallish family enterprises - this gives French women a large quiet influence over the affairs of their country.

Reg Cæsar said...


At some point before women's suffrage, say, 1900, everyone believed that women would vote right-wing, didn't they? Was that true at first?
–Douglas Knight

Yes. Very.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if she counts as a "great" Frenchwoman on the level of some of the others mentioned, but Brigitte Bardot seems like a right winger (at least by American standards). Read the section on her politics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Bardot

David said...

Hasn't anyone mentioned the Baroness Dudevant (George Sand)? The Jacqueline Susan of her day!

Seriously, she wrote a number of popular novels, slept with a number of famous men, and was left-wing. She also helped to pioneer World War T: she wore men's clothing, smoked cigars, swore and drank like a soldier, and gave herself a man name. Perfect candidate...except for that part about opposing the Paris Commune late in life. Hm. Maybe she isn't a good candidate after all.

tcasey1914 said...

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux is probably the most popular French female of the 20th century. And with millions of copies of her autobiography sold worldwide, she may be the most successful female French author of the 20th century (maybe ever?). But I don’t expect to see her in the pantheon either.

Anonymous said...

Frenchmen tend to be dark hero version of artists, sometimes a perfect blend between science, social life and art in their characteristics.

Hence, they tolerate femininity to a higher degree than most other men on the planet.