Boys Club

French Women | Sexual Harassment

Ellen Freudenheim: The ‘DSK Affair’ & American Independence Day: An Open Letter to the Women of France Huffington Post

There’s nothing about the entirety of the DSK lifestyle and numerous affairs that France has talked about for years that causes Anne to change her views about the positive relationship between French women and sensuality. Having spent so much time in France and Italy, she is confident that a positive sensuaity is deeply embued in French culture.

Nevertheless, a question flitted through her brain, considering the rising consciousness of French women on matters of sexual harassment and French chic. French women notoriously take better care of themselves than do American women. Admitting that French men have women under the microscope on the subject of weight control, French women often suggest that it’s for their own good.

At the risk of being on the receiving end of a politically-correct assassination attempt, Anne agrees with keeping health and wellbeing as a priority, and that includes weight management. However, Anne also admits that a previously unconsidered question went through her own mind recently, articulated now by Freudenheim’s words.

… I’ve sat in Parisian cafes, lingering over my café au lait and watched a parade of French women, teens to octogenarians, all the while trying to deconstruct what it is about them that’s so stylish: Their deft use of accessories? Good haircuts? Thin waists and big belts?

Never once did it occur to me that in dressing to draw attention, they’d be drawing attentions they didn’t dare demur. Because French women project a sense of personal power, my imagination didn’t wander in the direction of their possible powerlessness. But it’s the unwanted quandary of working women everywhere: an advance by the boss who pegs job promotions or salary increases to sexual availability.

The Immigration/Deportation Question

DSK Maid Fights Back MSN/MSNBC Powerball

A message to our members from union president Peter Ward The New York Hotel Trades Council

A letter from hotel workers union president Peter Ward denies that the union was in any way involved in getting ‘the DSK maid’ her job at the Sofitel. His account agrees with hotel records that the maid was hired directly by the Sofitel through the International Rescue Committee, a highly-respected organization that assists refugees

A ‘Potential Problem’ for Strauss-Kahn’s Accuser NYTimes

In an age when immigration is far from universally regarded as a virtue, you may be sure that some will want to see the housekeeper punished for having lied. No doubt, too, others will regard any attempt to deport her as harsh retribution — “a victim being revictimized,” in the words of Aileen Josephs, an immigration lawyer in West Palm Beach, Fla., who reached out to Mr. Thompson on Tuesday. She did so, she said, because she was upset about the way details of the asylum application had been leaked.

Brainiac

Republican War On America

The Mother of All No-Brainers David Brooks @NYTimes

Writing a blistering op ed piece about the Republican party, conservative moderate columnist David Brooks has all but thrown himself in front of the train, to stop the Republican party from plunging America over the abyss, perhaps unleashing a global financial panic of epic proportions.

Brooks make it very clear that the Democrats have offered enormous cuts as a way of dealing with the current deficit problem. President Obama would do well to study the Brooks language, because the op ed is written not with finger-wagging as Obama did in his press conference, admonishing the Congress to behave more like his daughters. It is written with brilliance and reason — a subject that has no place in American life anymore.

I expect my president to speak more like Brooks. Let us all be inspired to write like David Brooks and less like that guy who just left FOX? What’s his name? The one who denies scientific discovery and fact at every opportunity. Anne

Speaking about the significant offerings that the Democrats have put on the table, Brooks writes:

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.

If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.

And they will be right.

Fashion, Style & Culture

New Editorials/Commentary

Roitfeld’s Chanel Fall 2011 Ads Are Witth & Real Life Fun AOC Sensually Yours

With this first campaign, my girl Carine Roitfeld gives Chanel a shot of adrenalin that is fed from the bottom up, not top down as Lagerfeld himself prefers to do it. Both the cats and photo booth concept come from the young women and not Lagerfeld. They are FUN! They are WHIMSICAL! They are not DOUR!

I say let’s give Carine Roitfeld some room here. This new look is far more interesting and with personality for Chanel. It’s attuned to the young women — and older ones, too — who are tomorrow’s Chanel customer. I love the small hints of female sexuality that Roitfeld injects into the brand.

Gisele Bundchen | Jacques Dequeker | Vogue Brazil July 2011