{"id":1712,"date":"2012-02-23T22:16:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T22:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am?p=1712"},"modified":"2012-02-23T22:19:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T22:19:16","slug":"%d5%a1%d5%b5%d5%bd%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%b0%d5%a5%d5%bf-%d6%86%d6%80%d5%a1%d5%b6%d5%bd%d5%ab%d5%a1%d5%b5%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%b4-%c2%ab%d5%b4%d5%a1%d5%a4%d5%a5%d5%b4%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%a1%d5%a6%d5%a5%d5%ac%c2%bb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/%d5%a1%d5%b5%d5%bd%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%b0%d5%a5%d5%bf-%d6%86%d6%80%d5%a1%d5%b6%d5%bd%d5%ab%d5%a1%d5%b5%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%b4-%c2%ab%d5%b4%d5%a1%d5%a4%d5%a5%d5%b4%d5%b8%d6%82%d5%a1%d5%a6%d5%a5%d5%ac%c2%bb\/","title":{"rendered":"France bids adieu to title ‘mademoiselle’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"With nary a kiss to the hand nor tears of parting, the French government this week bids adieu to \u201cMademoiselle.\u201d\u00a0 In a memo addressed to state administrators across\u00a0France, Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Fillon ordered the honorific \u2014 akin to \u201cdamsel\u201d and the equivalent of \u201cmiss\u201d \u2014 banished from official forms and registries. The use of \u201cmademoiselle,\u201d he wrote, made reference \u201cwithout justification nor necessity\u201d to a woman\u2019s \u201cmatrimonial situation,\u201d whereas \u201cmonsieur\u201d has long signified simply \u201csir.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The choice of mademoiselle, madame or monsieur appears most everywhere one gives one\u2019s name in France: opening a bank account, shopping on the Internet or paying taxes, for instance.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Mr. Fillon\u2019s order, signed on Tuesday, came after an advocacy campaign of several months by two French feminist organizations, \u201cOsez le feminizme!\u201d (\u201cDare to be feminist!\u201d) and\u00a0 Les Chiennes de Garde\u00a0(The Watchdogs). The government minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, whose portfolio includes questions of \u201csocial cohesion,\u201d pleaded the groups\u2019 case with Mr. Fillon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019ve never wondered why we don\u2019t call a single man \u2018mondamoiseau,\u2019 or even, \u2018young male virgin?\u2019\u00a0\u201d the feminist groups ask on a joint Web site. \u201cNot surprising: this sort of distinction is reserved for women.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Magali de Haas, a spokeswoman for \u201cOsez le f\u00e9minisme!,\u201d expressed the hope that, in time, private organizations would also drop \u201cmademoiselle\u201d and that the term would fall out of popular use.<\/p>\n

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The niceties of the French language are monitored and debated by an august institution, the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise, which typically operates on a time scale commensurate with its venerability and has yet to offer comment. Nor have all Frenchwomen rejoiced at news of the change, given not only long tradition but also widespread disdain for more avid strains of feminism, deemed to lack sufficient appreciation for the joys offered by the differences between the sexes.<\/p>\n

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Men are often called \u201cjeune homme,\u201d or \u201cyoung man,\u201d through their 20s, and not \u201cmonsieur,\u201d Ms. de Haas noted. She suggested a similar distinction be made between the \u201cyoung woman\u201d (\u201cjeune femme\u201d) and more senior \u201cmadame,\u201d thus avoiding \u201cmademoiselle,\u201d a term that harkens to notions of female subjugation, she said.<\/p>\n

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As early as 1690, the terms \u201cmademoiselle\u201d and \u201cdemoiselle\u201d were used to signify \u201cunmarried female,\u201d according to the French Nation Center for Textual and Lexical Resources.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMademoiselle\u201d entered into official use under Napoleon I, the creator of the French civil code, but came into broader use only in the 20th century, according to Laurence Waki, the author of a recent book on the subject.<\/p>\n

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Historians know remarkably little about the origins of the term, Ms. Waki said, which she saw as unsurprising because it refers to women. \u201cIt always seemed such a minor detail,\u201d she said, \u201cespecially because the majority of historians are men.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ms. Waki said she was \u201cthrilled\u201d to learn that \u201cmademoiselle\u201d would disappear from official forms, though she added, with a bit of chagrin, \u201cI can\u2019t really believe that we\u2019re still only at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Some women deplored the seriousness with which feminists have approached the \u201cmademoiselle\u201d question, shrugging off what Ms. de Haas called \u201csymbolic violence\u201d of the word.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI find it\u2019s a shame,\u201d said Juliette Beniti, 61, a former factory worker puffing on a cigarette on a sidewalk just outside Paris. \u201c\u00a0\u2018Mademoiselle\u2019 had its place.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s flattering,\u201d she said. \u201cI often call women \u2018mademoiselle.\u2019 It\u2019s pleasing. It makes a person feel younger!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Olivia Cattan, the founder and president of Paroles des Femmes\u00a0(Words of Women), an aid group, said the move was frustrating, given deep gender inequities in pay and political and corporate prominence.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe think this measure is just smoke and mirrors, to avoid talking about more important issues,\u201d she said. \u201cThe urgency was elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After a contentious cultural debate decades ago, English-speaking nations have largely replaced \u201cMrs.\u201d and \u201cMiss\u201d with \u201cMs.\u201d In Germany, the term \u201cfr\u00e4ulein\u201d (\u201clittle woman\u201d) is no longer in official use. In Italy, honorifics are typically not used on official documents. And in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec,\u00a0 \u201cmadama\u2019 is used\u00a0for all except the very young and those who insist on \u201cmademoiselle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On state forms in France, the terms \u201cmaiden name,\u201d \u201cpatronymic\u201d and two expressions meaning \u201cmarried name\u201d are to be replaced by \u201cfamily name\u201d and \u201cused name,\u201d Mr. Fillon said in the memo. Apparently hoping to avert waste, he instructed that old forms should remain in circulation until the \u201cexhaustion of stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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No official estimates were offered on Wednesday as to when those supplies might run out, but there were concerns among some that, given the French state\u2019s penchant for bureaucratic paperwork, its current provision of forms might last some time.<\/p>\n

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By Scott Sayare – February 22, 2012<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With nary a kiss to the hand nor tears of parting, the French government this week bids adieu to \u201cMademoiselle.\u201d\u00a0 In a memo addressed to state administrators across\u00a0France, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,103],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-114","category-globe","tag-115"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.womennet.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}