French Minister Slammed for Playboy Shoot

Throughout the photo session, Marlène Schiappa, who is currently the minister for the social economy, remained completely dressed. The French April edition's cover will feature the photo. A discussion about abortion, sexism, and women's rights will also accompany the images.

 

Yet, the decision has angered both her rivals in politics and her peers in the industry. After a meeting with Ms. Schiappa, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said that the latter's action was not at all suitable, particularly during these times. With french workers on strike against President Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension reforms have clashed with police many times in recent weeks, Sandrine Rousseau, a member of the Green Party and an advocate for women's rights, shared Prime Minister Borne's concerns about the appropriateness of the decision.

"Women's bodies should be able to be exposed anywhere, I don't have a problem with that, but there's a social context", she declared.

However, Ms. Schiappa tweeted in justification of her magazine appearance:

"Defending the right of women to do what they want with their bodies: everywhere and all the time. In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the retrogrades and hypocrites or not."

Ms. Schiappa, age 40, is a frequent participant in French television discussion programmes and a former feminist novelist. Motherhood, pregnancies, and women's health are all topics she's explored in her writing. In her role as minister for equalities in 2018, she successfully pushed through laws criminalising catcalling and other forms of public harassment.

This is not, however, her first brush with scandal.

Several reviewers felt that her 2010 book, which offered sex advice for overweight individuals, perpetuated damaging stereotypes. Meanwhile, in 2017, she was allegedly caught on camera going to a "no-go area for women" in the French capital.

Because Ms. Schiappa has been so outspoken in her advocacy for women's rights, the publisher of the French version of Playboy defended her choice to feature in the publication, calling her the most "Playboy compatible" of members of Macron's administration.

The scandal is not a first, as the Playboy magazine has long been a target of feminism supporters’ wrath for the way it presents women's bodies as objects.

 

Source: bbc.com