France Reflects On Having No Age Of Sexual Consent, Even For A 10-Year-Old Girl Legally Raped In Many Countries

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Writing for The Atlantic, Marie Doezema zeroes in on a case in France involving an 11-year-old girl. one that 50 years later has sparked a moment of moral and legal reckoning. The event happened in April, 2017, when a 28-year-old-man met an 11-year-old girl in a park in Montmagny, a small town of 14,000 people in northern France. 

After congenial conversation with her that involved no coercion, the man said he would be happy to show the young girl how to kiss. She did go home with the man, and it's not clear from reading the reports when the girl showed the man her schoolbooks to establish her age. The victim says she did; the accused insists that she did not. 

“She thought … that she didn’t have the right to protest, that it wouldn’t make any difference,” the mother told Mediapart, a French investigative site which first reported on the allegations of the case. The accusations were of an adult raping a child—a crime that, in France, can lead to a 20-year prison sentence for the perpetrator when the victim is 15 or younger.

Facts are that the case was not proceeding towards a rape charge.  Initially, the man was charged with “sexual infraction,” a crime punishable with a maximum of five years in jail and a €75,000 fine. Under French law, a charge of rape requires “violence, coercion, threat, or surprise,” even if the victims are age 11 or 12, as the girl in the Montmagny case.

“She was 11 years and 10 months old, so nearly 12 years old,” defense lawyer Marc Goudarzian said. Sandrine Parise-Heideiger, his fellow defense lawyer, added: “We are not dealing with a sexual predator on a poor little faultless goose.”

French President Macron Promises Gender Equality Reforms As France Reexamines Its Own Treatment Of Women

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French President Macron Promises Gender Equality Reforms As France Reexamines Its Own Treatment Of Women

French president Emmanuel Macron observed the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women with a minute of silence for the 123 French women killed by their partner or ex-partner in 2016.

The #MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein scandal in America have provoked a rethinking of attitudes about sexual harassment in France, known worldwide as the "land of seduction and romance",writes Reuters. 

Unlike Donald Trump, who is trying to roll back women's rights advancements in America with increased legislation around women's reproductive health and a deep plunge in the appointments of women in his cabinet and inner circle and the federal judiciary, Macron campaigned on a platform of rethinking sexual politics and gender equality in France as part of his five-year-mandate.

Proposals that could be included in a 2018 draft law include criminalizing street harassment and extending the statute of limitation for the rape of minors to 30 years from 20 years. France has no minimum age of sexual consent and Macron is personally in favor of setting the age of sexual consent at 15. 

Kiss Cougars Goodbye & Meet The WHIP: Women Who Are Hot, Intelligent And In Their Prime

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Kiss Cougars Goodbye & Meet The WHIP: Women Who Are Hot, Intelligent And In Their Prime

Worldwide and big-time in America, women who date -- and are attractive to -- younger men, carry a negative identity. The film 'American Pie' coined the term MILF -- standing for 'Mum I'd like to f***' in 1999. Not long after, 'cougars' debuted, again as a sexual fantasy made in the male mind. 

British writer Bibi Lynch is done with all that. Inspired by women like Madonna, Mariah Carey, Joan Collins, Sam Taylor-Johnson and now the glamorous Brigitte Macron, she has taken ownership of female identity with the terms WHIPs: 'women who are hot, intelligent, and in their prime'.  

WHIPs are very attractive to younger men, Lynch explains, because they are not chasing a man to marry him and make babies. 

Brigitte Macron's Elle France September 2017 Cover Has Best Sales In A Decade

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Brigitte Macron's Elle France September 2017 Cover Has Best Sales In A Decade

Brigitte Macron covers the September issue of Elle France, giving her first interview since her husband Emmanuel Macron became president. Once again, Brigitte Macron is forced to talk about the 25-year age difference between her and her husband -- a topic the media is obsessed with. The subject is starting to feel like Hillary Clinton's missing emails. 

We've told the Brigitte Macron story before on AOC. What's noteworthy this morning is the success of putting Mrs. Macron on Elle France's September 2017 cover, lensed by Mark Seliger.

Reports are that Macron's September cover issue is the best selling French Elle issue in the last 10 years. In the first week, the magazine already sold 3 million copies, including subscriptions. The monthly average for Elle France in 2017 was 313 525 copies.

Macron wears a cream-colored Dior blazer on her cover shot and faded Saint Laurent jeans. As always, her signature point-toe stilettos are part of her typically casual, never overdone look. 

When asked if she prefers not to be asked about her style, Mrs. Macron quips, "Why not, if it does some good for the French fashion industry? I'm really into fashion, and there's this fascination the world over around this idea of the French woman."

Redtracker | TIME Remembers 50,000 People In New York City Demanding Women's Equality

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Women's News Headlines August 26, 2016

Second-wave feminism flexed its mighty muscle on Aug. 26, 1970, as 50,000 women marched down New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Joined by a coterie of men and anti-war protesters, the marchers were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, giving American women the vote. They were also demanding changes to the policies that affected women's lives: childcare and abortion policies, education and employment opportunities. Many women abandoned their usual duties for the day, joining with spiritual sisters across the country staging sit-ins and takeovers of all-male bars.

One year to the day after the Women’s Strike for Equality March, Congress passed a resolution designating Aug. 26 as Women’s Equality Day, and 45 years later, the day continues to be a moment to reflect on exactly what has been achieves in the arena of women's rights. 

With no Equal Rights Amendment in place for American women, and with the latest research from PEW affirming that over 70% of Republican men and 40% of Democrats believing that sexism is dead in America, older women are challenging younger ones to get real about deep refusal among American men to give women more rights. Particularly precarious for women are the Personhood bills littering state legislatures: Republican-sponsored laws that equates the rights of women with those of a fertilized embryo. 

Related:  AOC Channels the History of America's Equal Rights Amendment

More Headlines

France's top administrative court overturns burkini ban @ The Washington Post

Nate Parker's Alleged Sins Won't Keep Me From Seeing 'The Birth of a  Nation' @ The Daily Beast

The Hacking of Leslie Jones Exposes Misogynoir at Its Worst @ The Daily Beast

Read On: Women's News Headlines August 26. 2016

 

Lady Liberty Collides With Fundamentalist Hardliners In Paris

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Lady Liberty Collides With Fundamentalist Hardliners In Paris

Our thoughts are with the people of Paris today, the dead satirists who pushed the envelope of free speech and free expression will speak no more, although a request has gone global for media outlets to publish the anti-Islamic, Charlie Hebdo cartoons tomorrow.

Anne of Carversville will not be among them, as I am blacklasted in the Arab world already and my focus is women’s rights. If Islamists had launched a terrorist attack against the women of Paris for not wearing burquas, we would print anything needed against these brutes who kidnap little girls and decapitate aid workers on international TV.

Probably no single issue in France has done more to divide Muslims and non-Muslims than the burqa ban, a topic at the core of Anne of Carversville’s values and dialogue with women worldwide.  Read on for a look at AOC’s long history on the topic of banning burqas in France.