I think in this case, it’s because they’re French. It reminds me of this piece by Paulina Porizkova about how America made her a feminist. To quote:

What the actual fuck. If they won’t listen to their own recognized teacher of the year, who is an acceptable replacement?

I don’t know. I’m 52 and all this internalized misogyny “won’t someone think of the poor men” is seriously pissing me off. I do NOT give a fuck if some dude actually has to think about how he interacts with women. We have to think about how we interact with men every damn day so we don’t “send the wrong message” Fuck…

That bit: there is a thing that in French society, a pubescent boy is ‘seduced’ by an older woman, becomes his mistress, and is thus ‘relieved’ of his virginity. and then there is the reverse, in which a young girl would expect gifts and to seduced by an older man- but to be married.

Older women are (generally speaking) the enforcers of the status quo as opposed to the agents of change. So much of my childhood was dealing with older women who thought I wasn’t “girly enough” and then old hippie women who thought I wasn’t “feminist enough.” The phrase “Can I live?” was invented for them.

Omg yuck!

But but if I can’t flirt with the women in a space where they have no ability to leave how am I supposed to seduce them? /s

I think my mom falls into this. She’s 70. When we’ve talked about this — before #MeToo was big — she told me for one thing, she’s tired of hearing about it. And to be fair, it is so easy to get fatigued about almost any news issue these days. But also, she says, why didn’t they just quit and go somewhere else? She…

Yep yep yep yep yep. Glad someone else noticed that too.

She’s always had a chip on her shoulder about being less famous internationally than Bardot types, despite the skill differential.

It’s not for nothing that Polanski found a home there. And they* love him.

10 years ago while I was in my mid-20s, I worked in an organization that called itself feminist and worked on policy issues related to mental health and domestic violence. I was the youngest person there, and the lowest on the org chart. The organization leadership were upper class, highly educated women in their…

yes, and in the case of Deneuve plese bear in mind this idiot also defended director Polanski (who raped a 13 years old) by saying ‘she looked older’.

I saw this on my FB timeline when the Al Franken crap came out. Almost all women over 40 were like “it’s not that big a deal, jeez” and everyone younger was appalled. And once again, as a 45-y.o. I felt out of step with my generation. I think it’s like the reaction the same demographic gives to fat women wearing…

Even last year an old dude at a party touched my breast (twice, so you know it wasn’t an accident) and when I talked about it, I was essentially told to ignore it, he’s just an old man and why start drama over a non-event.

The French, man. The fucking French.

Definitely. I remember thinking it was kinda neat he was married to an older woman. Then I found out the details, and it got incredibly creepy and wrong very fast.

I’m reading this two years after the fact, cracking up laughing because I guaran-damn-tee that your 12 year-old knew exactly what was going on and told her friends about it later.

Expensive trucks too! It's crazy how these dumb motherfuckers can have such nice things. How's your Elantra and degree in art history? I read that they make little balls that you could hang off your four banger.

"We used to make things in this country" - and, thanks to people like Wilson Kemp, we do again! Truck Nutz, representing classic American virtues in a globalized world.