Hi, everyone and welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village, 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】. Welcome back, Aladin.

Hi, Lulu.

Now moving away from topics that heavy, let's talk about everyday feminism. So at workplace, do French women nowadays struggle with the same equality issues at workplace like equal pay or sort of like equal opportunity to get promoted? Is there glass ceiling or maternal wall that sort of thing.

In theory from what I know, the law in France is particularly they make sure that companies are not supposed to discriminate against like hiring a woman but that goes as well people from minorities because they are like around 20%...there is like a lot of people who actually come from like North Africa, Africa, Asian countries, a little bit of... and 1 or 2 generation ago, it was like more for Spain, Italy and Portugal.

So we do have laws regarding discrimination, then after, obviously it's gonna be difficult to prove that you've been discriminated against. Like if I'm applying for a job, I'm a woman and another guy’s been selected, I think is gonna be a bit hard to convince a jury that they choose that guy because he was a guy and they didn't choose me because I was a woman.

In my recollection, they have not been big public cases of discrimination like this. Still like a French woman, according to the law, people should be paid equally, but I just checked and roughly women are being paid roughly 15% less than men.

Than men.

Yeah, and I remember like recently a friend of mine she works in a big company. She was explaining to me that they decided the company was having nice bonuses and they decided to raise everyone’s bonus everyone’s salary, because they had such a good year, and good for them it’s just that at the end they raised everyone the same level.

So the big manager they were making good money, so I think they give everyone 3% but so like she thought it was kind of silly because entry workers...

He didn't really bridge.

Yeah, like an entry worker, 3% is not gonna be the same as a big manager. So she thought like they should have equalized the pay of entry workers and women and people maybe who don't have a proper diploma. Sometimes it's a whole work in progress.

And to give you another example, I think which is very important regarding maternity leave. French women enjoy a 6 months paid maternity leave when they have a child or the second or the third child. Whereas men just got 2 weeks and I do have a few friends of mine...

I think this is roughly the same as in China, give or take, women get 4 to 6 months and men just get 1 or 2 weeks. That's... I don't know how you guys feel about that because that is hardly equal because that kind of sort of just effectively taking men out of the child care responsibilities because they simply do not have the time to do that.

Yeah, definitely. And that is an issue. I do know that some of my French friend who became dad and who are supporting feminism, that's the one thing that would complain about. They would say like... they could like drop their job and take a 6 months non-paid vacation, but people are not stupid like if they have to choose between a salary or no salary, they are gonna take their salary.

But I do know that some of them were like this is not fair like why can't I be with my spouse and or baby for 6 months, and because at the end it keeps on the discrimination like every man will would have to be forced to take like a 6 months parental leave. I think first of all, you would really reduce like the whole workforce like the chore that you do at home like then guys would have to do the same as woman hopefully.

And then second then when you are hiring someone who is like around 28, 30, then you would not think about maybe take a man over a woman because at the end of the day, if they become a father, they would have to take a 6 months paid leave. But the problem is that's not the law right now. Hopefully it will change. But I do know that even for some of those dads, they are a bit like they are not that super happy about this.

Yeah, I mean there are talks like that in China as well, which I'm sure you're aware of.

Now, this actually brings me to, because you mentioned your friends who are guys and who think of themselves as feminists. Do people wear this identity out like as a badge like they would just go around telling people I'm a feminist whether they're men or women? Are people very open about it.

I think it would be the same thing as China, the US every big town, every big developed and developing countries. If you live in a big town, people would be more liberal and open to equality and feeling maybe a little bit less conservative on many points.

So if you’re like me, if you're from Paris and you're working in the cultural entertainment sector, obviously, you're gonna be more on that spectrum of like a political opinion of equality and feminism. Then if you like live in a smaller town, I guess people don't think that much about that or maybe they do, but it's a little bit more conservative. So at the end, I was like checking a report and over 70% of French people, men and women included, think themselves as being feminist or supporting feminism.

Wow.

Yeah, but that still says that there are like 1/3 of French people who don't really inclined to support this. And that's really interesting because on the last presidential election, when my president Macron was reelected a second time, roughly 1/3 of French people who are really on the conservative, reactionary, borderline Nazi people, those people are roughly 1/3.

So I think we kind of see like some kind of the dividing line.

Yes, the dividing line.

To give another like more...we had a Macron example. I'm just gonna give like a personal example. So like I said before, I came back to France, last year end of 2022, early 2023, as a single guy, so I opened up like my dating application because this is what people do sometimes. And I was really surprised and really found this really interesting like I saw that many women and they were like from.... and I'm 34 and many girls that I was like reading their profile, I could really see that many women were saying like I'm a feminist like if you wanna have a date with me, please like just consider that because if you are like some anti-feminist dude, just don't bother talk to me.

And it was not like one person, it was like half of them if not more.

It’s a trend.

And what I could say that when I was using dating APP like before I left China like 7, 8 years ago, that was not the case at all. Like people were more sharing, I people still do share like their passion what they do in their life. The whole “I'm a feminist and if you are not supporting us, just don't bother ask me out” was like really prominent. I found this was really interesting, but once again those are people living in Paris, Paris which is like a really open place like it's not a like a countryside valley.

Again it's more the awareness level that people feel the need or women feel the need to put that up front and then make that sort of like a screening process almost.

I'm sure they must have had like pretty bad experience.

But actually, when it comes down to really married life or settling down home life, what's people's general opinion or social conventions when it comes to gender roles? Is there still such thing as men should be the main breadwinner goes out or as money provides for the family, otherwise you're not a man enough and women are still more taking care of the household, the kid. Is there still such an expectation or convention?

First of all, I think we did not mention that, but already in France. France has like the highest natalité, birth rate. And one of the reason we have this is because actually, so you get, let's say you have a child, first of all, you get your 6 months maternity leave. And then pretty quick you can actually put your kid onto like some special it's even before kindergarten that's like really like nursery, like a daycare, like a daycare for kids; and the state is actually making sure that this doesn't cost too much for you. And you're gonna pay the amount of money that you actually earn. So if you're like a super rich family, you're gonna pay for it. But if you're like a poor family like you're gonna have it for free or for like some symbolic... nominal charge.

Therefore, that's why like so many French women are actually in the workforce, even if they have like a young kid because this is the way the state was like... because it's like a way for people to make sure that they can have more kids because the State is gonna support the nurseries and then the schools are ok quality, it could always be better but is still something and it's free most of the time, and it's basically free unless you want to send your kids to private school.

But at the end of the day already, I feel like the states supports families a lot. And then also when you have the third kid, the State would actually subsidize you with money. Once again, it's not enough so that they are not gonna pay you 1,000 euro. I don't know how much, but at least it's gonna pay at least the food or some clothes for your child.

It's all supporting the family so that perhaps women get more help and women can also go back to their work after their maternity leave, I guess.

Indeed, and to answer your question on the chore and like basically if you're at home, like I think most people would understand that there is a problem with that that we should be more equal on cleaning the dishes or get taking care of the kid and things like that.

But still, even as of today, French women still work like almost twice as much in their home as the men.

Yeah, I think we have to do more effort, and myself like I also live with someone for some times together. I thought I was doing enough, apparently I was not and I learned it, and I should have learned, that was good for me to know. But it's definitely like a try out.

But understanding it or realizing it's a good way. It's a good place to start. And as we're approaching the end of our discussion, I know you mentioned a little bit about the political side. I do want to ask a little bit further on that question is the whole welfare of women, girls, gender equality a major discussion point for politicians during elections?

That's a really good question. And I'm really sorry to say that no, it is not the case.

Most of the time like if you would be a politician and if you would do a platform on that, no, most of the time politician would more focus on, because we have a huge unemployment rate in France, it's getting better recently, but like we have a huge unemployment rate, some people feel that France is not safe enough anymore.

There is the question of immigration, climate change. A little bit climate change is finally entering like the public discourse. You do have some political parties would do talk about that, but they're not prioritized. The people who try to run on this platform and try to be elected or try to run campaign on that like they were not the most favored. Like if you talk about unemployment or security, you have a better chance of being elected.

I see. As far as issues go, perhaps gender equality is not really the top priority.

All right. And obviously this is a huge topic, there's no way we will be able to dig really deep, but at least I think with Aladdin we get to see a different aspect of France. We get to see how women are, not just women but also people who support feminism, are fighting this battle. Thank you so much for coming to show again. I cannot wait to have you back so we can explore other aspects of French culture and lifestyle.

All right. Thank you Lulu for inviting me and happy to say that, explain that some cliche about France we should take everything with a grain of salt. It's not all black and white out there.

Yeah, thank you. All right, bye bye.