French Women

           As I looked at French Women, from an American's perspective, I found some very interesting things. On a Q&A style article of match.com entitled, "How To Love Like A French Woman" some very interesting points arose. Chelsea Kaplan, the author of the article, said, "Ah, French women: they’re stylish, thin, mysterious — and, according to one recent book, more satisfied in their romantic relationships than American women are". One can see more of this article at: http://www.match.com/magazine/article/12161/How-To-Love-Like-A-French-Woman/#sthash.fKxykR4N.dpuf
          The images that I found through this process also deemed to be very interesting and thought provoking.

        This photo of a French Woman is beautiful. She is stunning, while not trying to hard. Additionally, she is looking down which gives her that delicate, womanly feeling.

        Through further investigation, I found this photo. It is of Clemence Poesy, a famous French actress. She has most notably starred in Gossip Girl and Harry Potter. In both Gossip girl as well as Harry Potter, she is depicted as quite spoken dainty. She is also portrayed as the "beautiful one" in both sources of film. Merely based on the picture above, one can see that she is also very fashionable.

         This is a very typical French woman. As I have spent some time in France, I can attest to this. A large majority of French women have this similar style and vibe. Style, as depicted in this photo, is very important and highly valued to the French women. The specific woman in the photo above appears to be very put together, beautiful, effortlessly chic, and again, fashionable.

           This last artifact was very strong and impactful. It is astonishing to see that of all the European countries, French women had the very lowest BMI at just over 23%. What is even more astonishing is that in 2011, the average BMI of American women was just over 28%. This large discrepancy between the two countries average BMI is incredible. This goes to show, simply put, that French women, in general, are much thinner than American Women.           
           The single story about French women, especially to us Americans, is that they are quintessential women. They are thin, fashionable, beautiful, delicate, always put together and seductive in an innocent manner. They capture the essence of what women strive to be and are told to be. This, obviously, is impossible to achieve yet remains the unattainable goal of women in our society.
          This can be very limiting to us as women because having an unattainable goal, especially when it has to do with physical appearance, can cause large problems with self-esteem and body-image. While not placing blame on the French women, I do think that they have a very large impact on the media because a lot of American inspiration for fashion and beauty comes from Europe. Because the media has such a large presence in our lives, this in turn means that French women have a large social impact on American women's lives.