For women walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, high heels, glitz and camera flashes mingle with waves of cyberstalking. The youtuber Léna Situations and Anna Biolay made their first climb of the steps this year. But their debut on the Croisette was marred by a litany of hateful comments on social media. “Too big thighs, too bad”, “with her cowardly body, yuck”, “with her legs, she shouldn’t wear this kind of outfit”, etc. The 25-year-old influencer, Léna Mahfouf of her real name, has suffered a host of messages criticizing her weight and, more particularly, her thighs.
As for the daughter of Benjamin Biolay, in addition to grossophobic comments, his face was the target of attacks with a lot of abject comparisons. “Women’s bodies are more subject to social control than those of men”, underlines Dimitra Laurence Larochelle, media and digital sociologist. “In events like the Cannes Film Festival, there is a primary spectacle – the festival, and a secondary spectacle – the female body. And it is the latter that is traditionally the subject of discussion in celebrity magazines or in many television programs”, illustrates the postdoctoral researcher at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
The “double standard”
In 2021, actress Corinne Masiero undressed on the Césars stage to send a message about the difficulties of show business professionals. In return, she had suffered a slew of hatred and a multitude of comments devaluing her body. The journalist Eric Revel had castigated this “ugliness” and this “deformity” on Twitter, while Stéphane Tapie had called it “kind of ugly” on the set of Do not touch My TV. However, a few years earlier in 2015, the actor Sébastien Thiery was also completely naked – on the stage of Molières this time – without causing a thousandth of these cries of outrage.
“It’s the double standard. Society is much more demanding with women than with men”, denounces Pelphine, who created the Instagram account Corpscool which denounces fatphobia. When a journalist told Harrison Ford that he was “still sexy” at 80, Léna Situations was called a “turkey” on social networks. “Women’s bodies are more subject to beauty diktats than men’s and therefore to social criticism”, agrees Dimitra Laurence Larochelle who believes that “the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries play a very important role in the reproduction of these stereotypes”. . “For example, advertisements for anti-aging creams are aimed almost exclusively at women” as are “advertisements promoting weight loss drugs (…) implying that it is women in particular who should always stay lean and therefore attractive. “, illustrates the sociologist.
On average, French women are 40 or 42
“The injunctions that weigh on women are lunar. Léna is 36-38, that’s less than 77% of the population! “, is indignant the creator of Corpscool. In France, the average sizes are 40 (20% of women) and 42 (17% of women), according to the French Institute of Textiles and Clothing (IFTH). With an ultra-standard body and a significant beauty capital, the surge of hatred suffered by the young content creator has provoked numerous articles.
But “it is important to remember that many people experience a thousand times more violence in almost total indifference”, recalls Pelphine before adding: “the more the body departs from the norm, the more people feel legitimate to verbalize their criticisms , their opinions, their advice”. Feminine ideals, despite more and more representations of different bodies, nevertheless seem increasingly difficult to achieve. Filters are multiplying on social networks. They erase all the details of the skin, refine the waist, accentuate the gap between the thighs, enlarge the eyes or even apply artificial make-up to women.
“A real weapon” to destroy women
“In contemporary Western societies, the ideals of beauty promoted through media and digital are often unrealistic and unattainable. Our gaze becomes accustomed to images of perfect bodies which are however far from being realistic”, denounces Dimitra Laurence Larochelle. This pressure is all the more overwhelming for women who are performing publicly. “When women speak up, express themselves, take up space, it’s scary. Harassing them, destroying them psychically, humiliating them is a way of making them disappear”, denounces Pelphine.
“According to gender stereotypes, it is rather men who are supposed to express themselves publicly, while women are, on the other hand, supposed to deal more with the private sphere”, recalls Dimitra Laurence Larochelle. At the risk of dragging women into the shadows. “It’s a real weapon because it pushes some women to refuse opportunities, others to stop exposing themselves,” explains Pelphine. Before confiding: “I chose to be anonymous to protect myself from all this. When I was attacked, I wanted to be attacked on my ideas, not on my body, not on my physique”.