Men are hauled over the coals in feminist war on barbecues

A prominent French Green MP has opened a barbecue war after branding the outdoor grill as a ritual that reeks of virility, male meat-eating compulsion and power over women.

Eating meat is more polluting and men eat twice as much red meat and charcuterie as women, Sandrine Rousseau says.

The Frenchman’s right to command the barbecue is an evil that must be curbed for the sake of the environment and women, according to a new feminist campaign.

Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent Green MP, opened the “barbecue war” by branding the outdoor grill as a ritual that reeks of virility, male meat-eating compulsion and power over women. “We have to change mentalities so that eating an entrecote steak cooked on a barbecue is no longer a symbol of virility,” she told a gathering in Grenoble of her party, Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV).

The latest foray from Ms Rousseau, an “eco-feminist” university lecturer with a reputation for controversy, provoked anger from conservatives, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp and also from traditional male leftists. It came only a week after the Greens, which are part of the main opposition bloc in parliament, suggested banning private swimming pools.

Éric Ciotti, a senior figure in the conservative Republicans, called Ms Rousseau “grotesque”, while Nadine Morano, another prominent party member, tweeted: “That’s enough. Stop blaming boys for everything. Stop ‘deconstructing men’.” Le Figaro, a conservative newspaper, published an attack on Ms Rousseau, 50, saying that feminists wanted to ban barbecues “as the last surviving little ritual of a virility that has been mercilessly pulverised everywhere in our culture”.

French Green party leader Julien Bayou defended the anti-barbecue brigade. Picture: AFP

Julien Bayou, leader of the Greens, defended the anti-barbecue brigade, calling the outdoor grill an undeniable symbol of virility. Men carried a heavy responsibility for climate change, he said. “It has been very much proven. Eating meat is more polluting and men eat twice as much red meat and charcuterie as women, so, yes there is a gendered approach to behaviour with food,” he said.

The Greens’ ally, the radical left Unbowed France party, also weighed in against men and barbecues. Clementine Autain, 49, one of its leaders, denounced the barbecue for its “virilisme”. Sociology explained that there was a very big difference between the sexes over meat eating, she said.

In a break with left-wing solidarity, however, the Communists, the traditional working-class party, which is also a member of the left-wing bloc in parliament, mocked Ms Rousseau. “You eat meat according to what you have inside your wallet, not inside your underpants,” Fabien Roussel, the party leader, said. He invited left-wingers to ignore the Greens and join him for the Communists’ annual barbecue in Paris next month.

Dissent also came from Michel Onfray, a celebrity philosopher who veers between hard left and hard right. “It’s ridiculous to say that when you’re having a few mates around for a barbecue it’s phallocracy and a return to the Stone Age,” he said. “This lady is a university lecturer. It’s appalling.”

Libération, the left-wing daily, sympathised with Ms Rousseau. “It may displease the haters but the entrecote at the barbecue is well and truly a totem of virility which it should be possible to put into question, especially after a summer that has been disastrous from the climate point of view,” it said. It forecast a new division in society “between meat eaters and those who refuse to wallow in the consumption of a food that is cruel and polluting”.

A defiant Ms Rousseau said she was “sick to death” of predictable anti-female reactions to her arguments. Men’s food emitted 41 per cent more greenhouse gas than women’s, she said. Men were overwhelmingly responsible for the evils suffered by society throughout history, from wars and violent crime to climate change, she added. “Whether the victim is a man, a woman or a child, in the overwhelming majority of cases the author of violence remains a man and, more often than not, a man who follows the stereotypes of gender,” she said. “So it really is virility which produces these deaths and so you really have to put it in question.”

– The Times