Protecting the Dignity of Women

Now, back to that letter Piroska Nagy [who accused Dominic Strauss-Kahn, her boss, of coercing her into an affair] sent to the independent law firm in charge of investigating the affair. She says, in substance, that DSK may not be ideally suited to manage a company with female workers, hinting at a certain degree of harassment on his part. She also said she was ill-prepared to reject his advances. So he was pushy, which is reprehensible since he was her boss, and she was weak, which is human. ... I guess the Hungarian economist felt ill-prepared because she probably never worked in France, or she would have recognised DSK as a typical French womaniser who wouldn't abide by strict American behaviour regulations in the workplace. Any woman who has worked in France knows his type by heart, and has suffered their endless soliciting. But French men too have to sometimes endure the advances of a female colleague. For better and for worse, this attitude belongs to French culture....

-- Agnès Poirier in The Guardian, writing about Dominic Strauss-Kahn in 2009

It seems that our friend DSK has quite a long history as a ladies' man. Boys will be boys, no?

Meanwhile, the French seem so preoccupied by what women wear on their heads. How unfortunate it would be if these women were oppressed or manipulated by the men in their lives.