We all love our partners and families but what is it that makes sitting around with your girlfriends, at any age, sometimes just the best place to be. Perhaps it is because we are all "ex pats" and with partners of another culture that these stolen moments are glorified.
France is the country of wine and food...and yet it is still a taboo for women to drink. This is often a topic of conversation amongst my friends. Whereas in our anglo/american culture the men hover around with chardonnay bottles topping up our glasses, their french counterparts are asking us if we " have had enough."
A woman drinking to laughter point is considered the last bastion of vulgarity in France...no, I simply don't get it!! I don't like to see anybody drunk, man or woman, but I do love good wine. My own husband still frowns when I go for a second and I have a friend who readily admits tossing her wine down the sink when she hears her french husband's key in the door. Surely these antiquated attitudes can cause guilt which could then amount to secret drinking thereby becoming far more problematic than a couple of glasses of wine with friends.
One of my own small pleasures in life is coming home after a long work day, opening a good bottle of wine and enjoying a glass while I start cooking for my family. When my husband and I first met, for him my "drinking alone" over preparing dinner was indicitive of a major drinking problem. At first I laughed, but will admit that after a couple of years I felt terribly guilty. Years later, I am well beyond the guilt trip and readily pour myself a glass of good wine. He still frowns or makes some out of date franco comment...to which I usually answer, " Who won the war?"
It is a cultural difference. I, like many other of my women friends, feel I have done enough cultural adaptation over the last 15 years or so...I am maintaining my "vulgar" wine appreciation habits and, with pride!
After having been away from Bordeaux for 10 days, last night's couple of lost hours sitting in the sun, feeling the first warmth of Spring, laughing my head off with my girlfriends over a glass of wine, was a soothing panacea.
Dinner you ask?.................My family ate pizza!
So very true xx
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about french men and women drinking? This is something I have also noticed,but also the looks of the french women. Oh well! Thank you Suzy for your post about this taboo subject.
ReplyDeleteSusie, all the french husbands I know go so far as to say "have you finished YET" but frankly after 20 years here I don't even listen. My guess is it comes back to the french sexist thing that women should be at work but also in the kitchen!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments...clearly hit a nerve with the post about women and wine in France. When will they realise that we girls are keeping the wine industry alive!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting... I'm 22 -and french- and I really love wine. I've never had a remark from men -My uncle or my cousin can easily serve me another glass if mine is empty- but among young adults, drinking wine is kinda old fashioned. It's strange to prefer wine to vodka for example. (Forgive my digression, it's even more problematic if you're a woman enjoying a beer. Does it the same in anglo/american culture ?)
ReplyDeleteOops, forgive the long com' !
Dear Wax, Thanks for your comment. I guess my friends and I are mostly mid 30s to late 40s and our generation of french men seem to shudder at the thought of we women drinking. Can not imagine their reactions if we all got into the vodka!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Susie
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