The health booklet showed a smiling young boy clearly anxious to grow taller. Next to him was a young girl measuring her waist and frowning. So far, so sexist, reports The Guardian.
What has shocked French feminists, however, is that the picture was used as a cover for the official Carnet de Santé, the health books given to mothers of all newborns to record the child’s development, by a local authority.
Now the Bouches-du-Rhône council has been forced to withdraw the offending books and reprint them at a cost of €33,000.
Health officials acted after the campaign group Osez Le Féminisme ('Dare to be Feminist') declared it was “particularly shocked” by the picture and lambasted health officials for “cultivating sexual stereotypes among children and their parents”.
“Sexual stereotypes are present in our daily lives at various levels; they are insidious and allow ordinary sexism to continue. They must be fought so we can build a true equality between women and men,” the group said in a statement.
“Beauty demands made on girls these days is excessively heavy and is present in practically all advertising with retouched photographs showing an unattainable model of beauty.”