Carla Bruni sparks outrage over feminism remark

Sydney: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been caught in a Twitter war after telling French Vogue that her generation had no need for feminism. “In my generation we don’t need to be feminist,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the former First Lady, who is making a public comeback after her husband Nicolas Sarkozy lost the presidency, and who guest edited the Christmas issue of the style magazine. “There are pioneers who paved the way for us. I am not a feminist activist at all. On the contrary I am a true bourgeoise. I love family life and doing the same thing every day,” she said. Her remarks sparked a deluge of reactions on Twitter, with a French feminist group Osez le feminisme! spearheading the assault, inviting people to respond to Bruni under the “hashtag” #ChereCarlaBruni (Dear Carla Bruni). Playing on the fact women still earn a quarter less than men in equivalent jobs, one user, LindaRamoul, retorted: “My generation needs feminism because I am on sale for a 27 percent discount all year round.” The French senator Laurence Rossignol also weighed in, tweeting: “For as long as I get asked if I am the senator’s assistant, the coming generation will need feminism.” “Eighty per cent of housework still carried out by women,” the one-liner came from Maman-Travaille. And a mother, MaggiAnT, wrote that “We will need feminism for as long as my son gets laughed at for saying he wants to be a midwife.” “We need everyone to be feminist,” summed up a government spokeswoman, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who is also the women’s rights minister, when questioned onEurope 1 radio about the row. “Feminism is about equal rights, not about one gender dominating the other,” she wrote. ANI