(Image source: TF1)

BY KEVIN DUBOUIS

ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

French Prime Minister François Fillon has released orders for officials to stop using “Mademoiselle” — the French equivalent of “Miss” — on administrative documents. NY1 reports.

“Don’t go calling a French girl ‘Mademoiselle’ any longer. French Feminists say it hearkens to notions of female subjugation …”

The abolition of the word is being taken as a positive step by French feminist groups. They say the focus on marriage implied by women’s titles has never been imposed on men — “Monsieur” has only ever meant “sir.” The Seattle Times explains how the titles were used.

“‘Madame or mademoiselle?’ is a loaded question in France, where it is used by men trying to establish a woman's ‘availability’ and by government departments, banks and companies that force women to categorize themselves as Mrs. (madame) or Miss (mademoiselle).”

The distinction no longer exists in a number of Western countries. Germany banned “Fräulein” — “little woman” — from official use back in 1972 and English-speaking countries have the option of the neutral Ms.

So in France, feminists campaigned to simplify official forms and call all women, “Madame.”

But some French women think the word “Mademoiselle” still has a place in the French language. The French broadcaster TF1 said fashion designer “Coco” Chanel always requested people to call her “Mademoiselle.”

A writer for The Atlantic Wire says there are much larger sexism issues than the use of titles.

“The more cynical point out that it's an election season and this could simply be a move to grab votes — and, truly, it's hardly on the same level as fighting for birth control and abortion rights. Or, ending a set of social rules that, you could say, allow for the doings of certain men we've seen in the news a lot lately.”

And the New York Times reports some activists think the campaign to change the documents took resources away from other issues.

“Olivia Cattan, the founder and president of Paroles de Femmes (Words of Women), an aid group, said the move was frustrating, given deep gender inequities in pay and political and corporate prominence. ‘We think this measure is just smoke and mirrors, to avoid talking about more important issues,’ she said. ‘The urgency was elsewhere.’”

But one feminist who campaigned for the change told France 24 this was more than a symbolic victory.

“People say to us ‘don’t you have better things to campaign about for women?’ but for us this is a real victory. This word is just a part of an unequal system and each time we gain a victory like this we are beating male domination little by little...”

All forms printed from now on will have the spaces for titles replaced with “family name” and “used name” — but the Prime Minister said, to avoid waste, the old forms will stay in circulation until they’ve all been used.