Two months after her departure from Matignon, Elisabeth Borne spoke again on Friday on the occasion of Women’s Rights Day to denounce “insidious sexism” which persists in a political environment still governed by “masculine codes”. “We are not experiencing unbridled sexism as experienced” Edith Cresson, the first woman to head the government of France three decades ago, “but there remains a form of sexism that is undoubtedly more insidious,” said declared Ms. Borne on RTL.
“You are constantly compared to masculine codes, in the way you go around the agricultural show for example (…) The reference is men,” explained the former Prime Minister, often portrayed as distant and strict. “Men in politics, they all have an interest in imposing masculine codes, that eliminates competition,” she added, noting that “in the names that circulated to replace (her), there was only men’s names, not the name of a single woman.
The inclusion of abortion in the Constitution, “a rather unusual moment of unity”
“As if the commentators were saying to themselves: ‘We have just had a woman Prime Minister for 20 months, that’s it, we’re going back to normal life, so the next one will be a man'”, lamented the one who gave in the place for Gabriel Attal. Proof according to her that “there is still work in many areas” to achieve real equality, in politics as in companies where women “are still few in number on management committees”, as well as for “the access of young women to scientific training.
Elisabeth Borne was nevertheless delighted to see the successful inclusion of abortion in the Constitution, voted by a large majority on Monday by Congress. “A rather unusual moment of unity”, she underlined, and even “one of the rare subjects on which we can agree with (the head of LFI deputies) Mathilde Panot”, she joked .