Paae Six
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Saturday, May 8, 1976 1
I
I %, TE MCHIAN0AIY^Sturay1May8,19764
Fran coise Giroud:
Fe~~ t 'yrechs
I xcrp/s of Francs (tuoud's ut/
siuwer / ie Iuus her auslbsograpiht
"Ive' Yon My Word'.
By ELAINE FLETCHER
FRANCOISE GIROUD has been in this
country only a few hours when the early
morning press conference and interviews
begin to get under way. A former journalist,
she seems more nervous before the ten or
so reporters than she will addressing the
University Commencement audience the
following day. Her hands tremble as she
accepts a citation from International
Women's Year, honoring her for being the
first woman to hold the title of Secretary
of State on the Condition of Women - a
French cabinet post created by President
net pout in 1974. "It was really a victory.
Blecause we can't speak at all about a
woman's situation if they have no right to
do what they want with their own bodies."
Ftr Giroud the issue has always held
prsonal as well as political implications,
having once sought an abortion-unsuccess-
fully-as the Nazis invaded Paris, and she,
unwed and pregnant, was forced to flee to
the south.
But it was not as a spokesperson on
abortion or other women's issues that
Giroud first became nationally known iit
France. She made her name in another
way - as the co-founder and editor of the
well known French newsmagazine, lEx-
press, a publication similar to Newsweek.
Although dubbed with a government title
The
Saturday
Magazine
And indeed Giroud is a perfect example
of the "self-made" woman. As a poor
young girl she quit school at age fourteen
to work as a stenographer, a fate from
which she was rescued by the well known
French movie director, Jean Allgret, who
hired her to work as a script girl. Giroud
worked her way up in the business to be-
come a scriptwriter and the first woman
assistant film director. And she worked
for the renowned Jean Renoir. When the
Nazis invaded Paris, Giroud fled to the
soith of France where she wrangled her
way into reporting for the big French daily
newspaper, Paris-Soir. She was imprisoned
for working with the resistance, and spent
a year in a Nazi concentration camp.
After the war she co-founded two of the
most successful French magazines now
operating in France: first Elle, a woman's
magazine which she became bored with,
then l'Express.
]RUT HER FIERY past seems only to have
had a reverse effect on the personality
of Giroud. She is slight of build, softspoken
and impeccably dressed. She laughs easily,
maintaining only a casual reserve that she
herself characterizes as typically French.
One quickly gets the sense that French
women in general are perhaps more
suspicio'ts of feminism than their American
counerparts. And in fact Giroud refuses to
label herself as one.
"Feminism in France has a very aggres-
sive connotation in the sense of the cas-
tration of men, of hate of men, and I
don't hate men at all," explains Giroud.
"In America you have a sort of revolt,
women feel cheated. We have none of this
feeling in France." She does not blame
woman's condition on men, but says, "The
major responsibility of assuming respon-
sibility lays in the woman's hands. Women
can do everything but they don't choose to
do it."
Giscard d'Estaing.
"My English is not so good that I will
try to make a speech, but I will try to
answer all your questions," she responds,
standing up for just a moment to reach a
microphone that is almost as tall as herself.
But slowly the foreign words, the English
words begin to flow. The facts and figures
are at her fingertips as her confidence ebbs
back. She begins fielding questions on a
for the first time in her life, she did not go
looking for the job.
"When you are a journalist you are the
voice of opinion, the voice of little people-
not the voice of power. But to be on the
government is to be on the other side. I
don't like it frankly, but it is interesting,"
she comments. Yet she has learned to use
her jounralistic experience to the best ad-
vantage in her new position. "To plant the
topic with which she has become all too seeds of imagination - that's the most R EGARDLESS OF definitions, her con-
familiar by now - women. important thing I could do," comments cerns for French women remain much
Giroud, "I speak on the T.V. and on the the same as those much-discussed feminist
"' BORTION? There are now no restric- radio. I write pieces. topics in the U.S. Since her cabinet appoint-
'ions in the first twelve weeks," says ment in 1974, Giroud has worked to up-
Giroud of the new liberalized law for which "But it is against my nature to be on the grade equal pay statutes, reform marriage
she was instrumental in winning accept- side of power, because all my life I was laws, increase day-care opportunities for
nce just after being appointed to the cabi- not." working women and career education for
young female students. But sh
proud of a new law which assure
women of continued dependency
payments-a concept which many
feminists strongly object to.
"I plead for the economic ind
of women without which you
really a free person. And I say I
want to be beaten by your hus
times a day, then that's another
But you can't stay with a man b
can't pay your rent."
When you are 0 job
you are the voice of o
the voice of the little
- not the voice of pow
to be in the governmei
be on the other side.
For the French perhaps more
Americans, women have alwa:
several distinctly different rolO
culture. "Men make a clear cut
between their wives (duty) and th
(pleasure)," writes Giroud in
biography, "It was as though d
an angel for the angel in the
beast for the beast, all of which
a way of denying women their
complexity."
Yet despite the economic and
advances of certain exceptional
recent years, this sexual dual
really changed, Giroud maintains
"It's very difficult to change th
because it has its root in man's
A LTHOUGH the percentage
women in elite professional
higher when compared to men t
United States, the middle an
classes still view more public
liberated roles for women, withl
picion, says Giroud.
"The workers have a very di
People give them orders and h
over them. Then at home th
dominate over their wives." &
feels that most French woe
oppressed by men inside the
family. "In their personal relati
are very important. The real pr
the social field where they do
part. Women have alacays co
purse and the household more
U.S., bit publicly they have aba
a very subservient role," adds
Girud's, former Paris Time ,ua
respondent Charles Eisendrath.
JT IS THE YOUNG which ye
to give Giroud the most satir
hope for the future of women.