Women on Fire
AP Photo/Christophe Ena
While recent events stateside may have pulled our focus this week, the ongoing protests in France are worth our renewed attention. To Americans, whose retirement age, as John Oliver quipped, is “No.”, the idea of wide-scale protests over an increase in retirement eligibility from 62 to 64 may seem laughable. But there is a reason why the protests show no sign of stopping – even after President Macron railroaded the law through parliament without a vote. It’s not just the streets that are ablaze. French women are crying out that they are on fire. The real question is whether or not anyone else in the world is listening. Why am I not finding anything in the US media about this when the issue is so universal?
Reading through foreign news coverage, I was initially delighted to discover the existence of Les Rosies, a feminist action group styling themselves after Rosie the Riveter, that icon of feminist working women everywhere. Then I learned why they now exist: France’s new law disproportionately impacts French women who – in the cradle of modern equality & democracy – receive a staggering 40% smaller pension than their male counterparts, even as some are working years longer. How can that be?
“It’s always those at the bottom of the pile, who have been poorly paid or part-time jobs like nurses, health assistants, and cleaners, who are made to pay – always the same people, many of them women, asked to make the sacrifices.” Fabienne Gobinot
The problem is twofold: in order to qualify for retirement and receive a pension in France, one must both meet the age requirement (now 64) and have worked full-time for a requisite number of years, paying into the state pension system. It makes sense that women, who globally continue to bear the burden of both child rearing and elder care, would manage the load either through taking pauses in full-time work or by taking part-time jobs. All of that additional household responsibility is not officially recognized by the French government. Instead, women must now ‘make up’ for this lost time through extended full-time work in order to qualify for their pensions. Together with persistent wage inequality (a steady 15% in France), it’s not hard to understand French women’s rage. It’s not just the streets that are ablaze. As Les Rosies loudly sing, “Women (are) on Fire!”.
An important point that Les Rosies raise is how disproportionately this new law impacts not just women, but those working the hardest jobs, often for the least amount of money. As Fabienne Gobinot says in the article attached, “It’s always those at the bottom of the pile, who have been poorly paid or part-time jobs like nurses, health assistants, and cleaners, who are made to pay – always the same people, many of them women, asked to make the sacrifices.”
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, indeed. It’s certainly not Sororité.
It’s not just French women who are on fire, either. While the protests may be uniquely French, the underlying problem, sadly, is not. American women also disproportionately shoulder the burden of caring for our children and our parents at the expense of ourselves and our 401(k)s. (This was never more self-evident than during the worst of the pandemic.) Women have been screaming ‘Fire!’ for so long without results that we’re exhausted. We’ve marched, we’ve voted, we’ve put women in positions of leadership, and yet ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’. What is it going to take to finally ignite real change? How do we keep the smoke of our own fire from blinding us all?