The French Woman is a Femme-enfant

There is the femme fatale.

There is the trophy-wife.

There is the bimbo.

There is the lolita.

And there is the femme-enfant. 

Not long ago, as I was having a conversation on women with male friends, one of them cut short and suddenly told me “you know what, very simply, our type of girls is the femme-enfant one”.

It’s funny coz we all understood what this friend meant by “femme-enfant” so I was wondering if it’s because we were all French. An English translation for “femme-enfant” would be “child-woman”. I asked German friends if there was such a word that could translate “femme-enfant” in German. Funny thing, they actually have “men-children” in Germany! But no femme-enfants. Then I asked a Belgian friend who speaks fluently French and Flemish. Interestingly, the word femme-enfant does not translate into Flemish, which led me to the conclusion that maybe, this concept is proper to the French language and maybe to the French culture.

So let me explain what a femme-enfant is, and if there actually is such a thing as femme-enfants in your language and culture, or any other types of complex gender-related stereotypes, please share!

1. A stereotype of a French woman: the “femme-enfant”

A femme-enfant is a type of women.
It’s a stereotype.

BOOK: BRINGING UP BÉBÉ, OR HOW THE FRENCH RAISE THEIR KIDS

It’s been more than a year now that Pamela Druckerman’s book about French parenting, Bringing Up Bébé, One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting was published and made people talk about it. So after having tackled on the blog several topics I like, I decided it was high time I read this book.

I’m always a little suspicious towards those best sellers as I dread that they won’t do more than exploit a few French stereotypes, and you know how funny then annoying it is to hear someone repeat/ask stuff about your country that come from where the hell.

Simply put: I liked it a lot. I was hooked after a few pages, it’s fluid, it’s fun and you learn many things about France and the mentality of the French middle class as she precises many times.

RICH OR POOR? WHAT THEIR FIRST NAMES SAY ABOUT THE FRENCH

We know that names are not given by chance: people bear names that reflect their genders, religions, their nationalities. Well then, what are typical French names, you may wonder?

1. The official list of the very French names

Spontaneously, to get an idea of what are typical French names, I would recommend you have a look at any calendar in French and check the saints. These names are traditional ones I would say.

But I also discovered an official list of the names considered French by the French authorities. This list is submitted to all people about to adopt the French nationality, and who might want to change their first names for a typical French one, “in order to facilitate the integration and daily life of the newly French“.

Now, if you are currently looking for a French name for your baby, of course, some names are in trend, others are outdated. It is sometimes funny for us French to see that some French-sounding names borne by American stars are completely outdated and only borne by French grandmas, like Michelle, Nicole, or Jacqueline. If by chance you were wondering which names are popular in France right now, check this website!

But names also are social indicators. Within a culture, some names are typical to certain social backgrounds, and reflect the tastes, mentalities, values of the parents who give them to their children. Are there names typical to the French upper class? Are there names that we only find in the French lower class?

YVES SAINT LAURENT’S COMIC BOOK : ‘La Vilaine Lulu’

The Yves Saint Laurent Foundation scanned many works of the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent, including original boards of his comic book, La Vilaine Lulu.

La Vilaine Lulu is a “tale for sadistic ou prodigy children” according to Saint Laurent. Its main protagonist is an awful and mischievous little girl, a true mean girl! Look at the Easter board, she even is a murderer!

Lulu Hairdresser

MOVIE NIGHT: Le Péril Jeune (1994) – The movie of the French youth

A classic!!

Every summer in Paris, for the poor Parisians left working in the empty capital are organized movie nights in parks. And every summer, they show this movie, Le Péril jeune (the youth peril, wordplay based on the phrase “le péril jaune”-yellow, referring to China). As we say in French, “c’est une valeur sûre”=it’s a sure bet, no matter how many times people saw this movies, they are coming back. 

The story begins with the gathering of 4 friends five years after high school graduation. They gather at the hospital where was born the son of the fifth member of their crew, who has died a couple of weeks before. They recall the past, and hop, ellipse, we are in 1976, and it’s their graduation year. It’s the group of friends that makes every Frenchmen nostalgic of their high school years, being insolent and rebel, getting in troubles/into politics, looking at girls, joking around, pretending to be intellectuals, not giving a shit about anything. If you are interested in learning French through movies, I have to tell you that the dialogues are full slang -as you can expect in such a context.

BOOK: Lettre à D. Story of a Love – a book that’ll make you cry

To read Lettre à D., you will only need one hour, but you can plan a 15 min break during which you’ll be busy trying to find a tissue, blowing your nose, getting rid of those tears and calming down.

Letter to D. is a love letter, a letter written by André Gorz, French journalist/thinker disciple of Sartre (originally named Gerhart Hirsch, Austrian Jew), to Dorine, his wife. He expresses his love, his gratitude, his surprise at the idea of having found her, having lived with her, object of her good care, her devotion, delighted by her tact, her witt and her intelligence.