French feminists lambast council over 'sexist' health booklet cover

The health booklet showed a smiling young boy clearly anxious to grow taller. Next to him was a young girl measuring her waist and frowning. So far, so sexist.

What has shocked French feminists, however, is that the picture was used as a cover for the official Carnet de Santé, the health books given to mothers of all newborns to record the child’s development, by a local authority.

Now the Bouches-du-Rhône council has been forced to withdraw the offending books and reprint them at a cost of €33,000.

Health officials acted after the campaign group Osez Le Féminisme (Dare to be Feminist) declared it was “particularly shocked” by the picture and lambasted health officials for “cultivating sexual stereotypes among children and their parents”.

“Sexual stereotypes are present in our daily lives at various levels; they are insidious and allow ordinary sexism to continue. They must be fought so we can build a true equality between women and men,” the group said in a statement.

“Beauty demands made on girls these days is excessively heavy and is present in practically all advertising with retouched photographs showing an unattainable model of beauty.”

It added it was surprised that the local authority could “ignore the complexes and eating disorders” such images provoke.

Campaigners also pointed out that paediatricians rarely measure a child’s waist except in cases of clinical obesity.

The Bouches-du-Rhône council said the picture had been chosen by a previous administration and agreed the image was “inappropriate given the public health concerns linked with the fight against anorexia in young girls”.

It said the book was being withdrawn and a new one would be produced “as soon as possible”.

However, Philippe Bilger, an honorary magistrate, told Le Figaro it was an outrageous “waste of money” and hit out at what he called the “overblown and militant anti-sexism about everything and nothing”.

“What is this imperious necessity that obliges us to waste €33,000? Just for daring to show characteristics that are an everyday reality is enough to throw health booklets in the bin … the world has been turned on its head,” he wrote.

Previous health books issued by the Bouches-du-Rhône council, posted on Twitter, show girls playing football.