CHENNAI: In France, the politician Marlene Schiappa has appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine — clothed, but in a suggestive pose and a revealing outfit. The cover photograph accompanies a lengthy interview, which is said to be about her stances on various civil issues including reproductive and queer rights.
Schiappa has worked in sectors including gender equality and citizenship, with left-leaning but sometimes mixed political values (for instance: she fast-tracked French citizenship for foreign health workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic; but she also called for foreigners who had committed sexual crimes to be deported rather than be tried by strict, existing laws that apply at large). She is known to champion women’s rights and sex positivity, and has also authored numerous books.
Her decision to pose for the famously sleazy magazine (or “mook”, as the publication calls itself — indicating a cross between a magazine and a book) has drawn widespread criticism. Senior leadership, including French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and others whose stated politics are not conservative, have denounced the move.
Media reports keep calling Schiappa the “first female French politician” to appear on the cover of Playboy. This made me think that others, more specifically a man, must have done so before her. If one (or perhaps more) did, he got away without any long-term impact, since his name isn’t circulating now. But if that isn’t the case, then inherent sexism is at play in the language of the reports. Why not just “first politician”?
Still, Schiappa’s decision is definitely a little gimmicky, because to quote her in her defence of the same: “In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the hypocrites and the retrogrades or not”. Which then begs the question about why she did it. In a place where feminist impact has been widely experienced at most levels of society, a woman with as much power and influence as she has hardly needs the platform of a publication with a contentious and specifically misogynistic history to bolster her message.
Yet, reading about her gimmick while living across the world and scrambling for a dupatta every time the doorbell rings, it also feels like one of those necessary pokes at the patriarchy. Here in India, a woman in politics (or a woman anywhere) would not be forgiven for just being authentically herself, let alone for indulging in exercises in risqué publicity.
People of all genders, with their deeply internalised patriarchal sentiments, don’t allow for that. In the meanwhile, men in high office can consume pornography on their cellphones during State Assemblies and get away pretty much unpunished. For instance: a Tripura BJP MLA was recently seen doing exactly that, similar to the five BJP MLAs in Karnataka and Gujarat who were caught doing the same thing in 2012. While three out of the five were made to resign back then, two of them were reinstated by their party, with one even becoming a Deputy Chief Minister in 2019.
So I sigh a little: imagining a country where feminists are in power, disagree with each other, and we all still get to do whatever we please. Instead of, well…this.
Sharanya Manivannan
@she_of_the_sea
The columnist is a writer and illustrator