By Gillian Bowditch
In heaven, says the old and decidedly non-PC joke, policemen are English, mechanics are German, cooks are French, hotel keepers are Swiss and lovers are Italian. In hell, policemen are German, car mechanics French, cooks English, hotel keepers Italian and lovers Swiss.
National stereotypes were meant to have gone the way of bowler hats and the British Empire. They are a throwback to a less enlightened era when Lord Baden-Powell could unblushingly opine in Scouting for Boys that the way to tell a foreigner was by looking at his shoes. The new empire builders are global brands. Disney, Nike and McDonald’s are meant to have melded into an international soup. We’re all inhabitants of the global village now.
Yet the latest publishing phenomenon plays entirely on the notion that the inhabitants of a country share certain traits. Scots-born writer AA Gill has stirred up huge controversy (and sales) with The Angry Island: Hunting the English, which portrays the English as “a lumpen and louty, coarse, unsubtle, beady-eyed, beefy-bummed herd”. But it is new, positive stereotypes of women that are raking in the cash faster than you can say “German with a beach towel”.
Hot on the kitten heels of Mireille Guiliano’s bestseller, French Women Don’t Get Fat, comes Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat by husband and wife team William Doyle and Naomi Moriyama, hyped as the hit diet book of 2006. So do national stereotypes have an upside? Let’s take a look at the claims.
The Claim French women don’t get fat
The Case For Catherine Deneuve, Edith Piaf, Isabelle Adjani
The Case Against Brigitte Bardot, no end of femmes de la maison
Myth or Reality Myth
Fifteen years ago I went to Paris to write a feature on the now defunct Marks & Spencer on Boulevard Haussmann. Two facts about French women confounded all my preconceptions. The first was that the biggest seller in the food department was the pan loaf – despite all those boulangeries, French women wanted le sandwich because baguettes go stale so quickly. The second was that the average Frenchwoman was a full size larger than her British counterpart. While size 12 was the biggest seller in the UK, in Paris the average woman was a size 14. The secret of French chic, said the head of the store, was that French women were extremely particular about the way they dressed, choosing colours and styles which flattered their figures. More outlandish fashion trends lingered on the shelves while variations on the classic Chanel suit flew off the rails. Guiliano, who is the head of a Champagne house and has homes in France and New York, bases her thesis on the fact that, although French women enjoy a diet rich in butter, cream, meat and pastries, they are slimmer than their American and British counterparts. This is because les portions are tres petites. France is the home of nouvelle cuisine, while America is the home of super-sized Big Macs. “A croissant in Paris is one ounce,” says Chris Rosenbloom, professor of nutrition at Georgia State University, “while in Pittsburgh it’s two.” The French also have less coronary heart disease. According to the World Health Organisation, French women have the second longest lifespans and can expect to live till 82.
Yet, according to the latest French government research, our Gallic neighbours are losing the battle of the bulge. One in ten French adults is obese and the figure is rising, up from eight per cent to 11 per cent in the last five years. Admittedly, the figure is lower than the British obesity rate of 22 per cent or the American 33 per cent, but it isn’t that French women are particularly slim, just that they are getting fatter at a slightly slower rate than everyone else.
According to Anne Barone, author of Chic and Slim: How Those French Women Eat All That Rich Food and Still Stay Slim: “The French woman sees herself as a beautiful woman despite her physical flaws. She is worth the effort of eating well, taking care of herself. She deserves to be slim and healthy.” And their other slimming secret? Magic Knickers. There are as many lingerie shops in Paris as there are boulangeries.
The Claim Good-time girls come from Brazil
The Case For Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto (the real girl from Ipanema), Gisele Bundchen, more plastic surgeons per square mile than anywhere else on earth
The Case Against More plastic surgeons per square mile than anywhere else on earth
Myth or Reality Reality
“Of all the places on earth to be stationed,” says Don Black, an executive in the oil industry, “the best is Brazil. The beaches are fantastic, the women are amazing and the whole country loves to party.” It’s not just the girl from Ipanema who is “tall and tanned and young and lovely”; half the women in Rio de Janeiro fit this description. Mikki Taylor, a fashion and beauty writer, says the key to Brazilian sexual attractiveness is an amazing self-confidence. “They just exude self-love,” she says. “In Brazil youth is an attitude. You are as likely to see a 50-year-old walking confidently in a bikini as a 20-year-old. They have a ‘why-settle-for-anything- less’ approach to life.”
Taylor says Brazilian women leave nothing to chance, which would certainly explain their attitude to plastic surgery. That and the fact that before a relationship gets serious, Brazilians will insist on a “beach date” so they can have a look at a prospective lover’s body before making up their minds. In the last five years the number of plastic surgery procedures performed in Brazil has more than doubled, with 400,000 operations performed annually, the highest per capita rate of anywhere in the world.
Not unsurprisingly for the country that invented the G-string, in Brazil plastic surgery is nothing to be ashamed about. Juliana Borges, a former Miss Brazil, admitted to having 23 procedures before her 22nd birthday. Even the dogs go under the knife, with Dr Edgard Brito offering wrinkle-reduction, eyebrow-correction and full canine facelifts. Then there are the weekly manicures, pedicures, facials, peels and waxes which are routine for any fashionable Brazilian (woman, not dog, that is). The growth in plastic surgery may be attributed in part to the fact that, in Rio, life really is a beach.
Brazilian office workers wear their bikinis under their suits so they can pop out at lunchtime and top up their tans. Instead of sweating in a gym, they play volleyball on the beach. From a young age females learn to rub sand and sun lotion into their thighs to prevent cellulite. In an international study of attitudes to health and beauty, sponsored by Dove and co-authored by Susie Orbach of the London School of Economics, Brazilian women were the ones most likely to contemplate plastic surgery – 54 per cent – and to describe themselves as “beautiful”.
For Brazilian women, beauty and love go hand in hand. They were the most likely to say being loved made them feel beautiful and they also scored the highest for overall satisfaction with their lives, perhaps because, despite the image of Brazilian men as macho, it’s the women who are actually calling the shots.
Mary Murray Bosrock, author of Put Your Best Foot Forward, a guide to business etiquette, says Brazilian women can be very aggressive romantically and forward to the point of harassment. “Don’t be surprised if you are in a restaurant or nightclub and a woman sends you a note asking for your phone number, even if you are with your wife or girlfriend,” she writes. “I do think we can learn a thing or two from our Brazilian sisters about owning our bodies and being proud of them,” says Taylor. “Truth be told, the Girl From Ipanema is a state of mind.” And a nifty scalpel.
The Claim Japanese women don’t get old or fat
The Case For Crown Princess Masako, Madame Butterfly
The Case Against Female Sumo wrestlers (yes, they really do exist)
Myth or Reality A bit of both
Naomi Moriyama’s claim that Japanese women don’t get old is contradicted by a single fact: Japan has the largest number of centenarians of any country in the world. There are 25,000 Japanese aged 100 or more and more than 80 per cent of them are women. Japanese women have held the record for longevity for the past 20 years and can expect to live to the age of 83. Yet just four decades ago, the number of Japanese centenarians was a mere 153. The secret? Diet, high standards of health care and close-knit families.
An Australian study of the people of Okinawa, the Japanese community with the highest number of centenarians, discovered that, while genetics played a part, it was only a small part. Lifestyle was of far greater importance. On average the people of Okinawa ate a third fewer calories than their western counterparts. The people of Okinawa eat a huge variety of green leafy vegetables (more than elsewhere in Japan) along with water-based soups and lots of sweet potatoes, a carbohydrate very low in calories. Moriyama’s book should be entitled Japanese Women Don’t Die Young.
It is true that Japanese women often look younger than their years. Moriyama recalls being asked at the age of 42 to produce ID in a US liquor store to prove she was over 21. Yet while Japanese women have an enviable youthful demeanour, they don’t appreciate it. According to the Dove-sponsored comprehensive study of national attitudes to health and beauty (see Brazil, left), Japanese women are the most dissatisfied with their looks.
The study of 3,200 women in ten countries found that while 10 per cent of Americans and 19 per cent of Italians rated themselves as “beautiful” or “pretty”, no Japanese women described themselves in these terms. Women in Japan, in fact, were significantly more likely to rate their beauty and physical attractiveness poorly compared to other women and, despite their longevity, they were the least likely of any of the nationalities studied to believe that women can be beautiful at any age.
“Japanese women are significantly more likely to think of themselves as ‘somewhat less’ or ‘much less’ beautiful than other women,” says the survey. And while only 23 per cent of the Japanese women surveyed were overweight, compared with 60 per cent for the US and 57 per cent for the UK, 52 per cent of Japanese women believed themselves to be too fat, which rather confounds Moriyama’s thesis.
It gives a whole new meaning to “Big In Japan”.
The Claim Italians are the world’s best wives and mothers
The Case For Sophia Loren, Tosca, Raphael’s Madonnas, no end of Dolmio adverts
The Case Against Lucretia Borgia, Messalina (wife of the Emperor Claudius), Nancy Del’Olio
Myth or Reality Myth
For the two most venerated institutions in Rome – the Catholic Church and the Mafia – femininity is synonymous with motherhood and has been for generations. Italian mothers have a reputation, not wholly undeserved, for smothering their male offspring. Two-thirds of Italian men aged 29 are still being looked after by their mothers. The Catholic Church’s stance on contraception and abortion meant that once women had little choice but to accept their role as mothers. This attitude was reinforced by Mussolini, who argued that motherhood was part of a woman’s national duty.
All that is changing, however. Italy now has the lowest birth rate in Europe, at 1.3 children per woman. Italian fathers are the oldest in Europe, with 33 being the average age of a first-time dad. This hasn’t stopped the Italian equality minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, issuing ten commandments for women, the first of which is: “Consider motherhood a value; it is the greatest, most important, special experience for a woman.”
The big Italian family, a staple Hollywood stereotype, is now a thing of the past. Just as alarmingly, Italian women’s reputation as among the sexiest in Europe is also taking a battering. The Italian Society for Gynaecology and Obstetrics carried out a survey earlier this year which discovered that, despite the low birth rate, contraceptive use in Italy is the lowest in Europe, with 47 per cent of Italian women taking no precautions. “This situation raises the question of whether Italians are having less sex than in the past,” said the society’s Emilio Arisi. A survey by Durex could provide an alternative answer. It discovered that Italian women were the most inventive in bed.
Italian women should, however, be warned. If they don’t want their menfolk, there are plenty who do. In a comprehensive survey of 20 countries for the Wall Street Journal, nearly one in four Europeans said they dreamed of Italian amore, with one in four British women opting for an Italian lover over a British man if they had the choice.
To further shatter the myth, Italian women are divorcing in ever greater numbers and at older ages, according to a study for the Italian Society of Gerontology. So-called “grey divorces” are now a recognised social phenomenon. But that may simply be due to the ageing population. At present there are 35 pensioners for every 100 workers in Italy. By 2050 the proportion will be 75 pensioners for every 100 workers – a case of grandmamma mia, perhaps.
So if the Italians are not the world’s best mothers, who are? Step forward the French. They, along with the Irish, are the Europeans producing the most children, at 1.9 per woman. The French claim it is all to do with their superior health, sexual attractiveness and natural fecundity. Nothing, then, to do with the municipal creches, supervised homework sessions, subsidised holiday camps and GBP 6,500 paid to French women for having a third baby.
The Claim Swedish women have the busiest sex lives
The Case For Ulrika Jonsson, Ingrid Bergman, dodgy films about au pairs
The Case Against Greta Garbo, Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman
Myth or Reality Myth
According to the United Nations, the Swedes have had more success in producing equality between the sexes than any other nation. The proof? Swedish men do more housework than men anywhere else. The stereotypical Swedish woman, all blonde hair and monokini, is a figment of British men’s fertile imaginations. The biggest surprise about Swedish women is that they are more at home in the boardroom than the bedroom. In a Wall Street Journal survey of 19,000 people in 20 countries, Swedes said a good sex life meant sex once a week or less – bottom of the European league.
According to a survey for the Stockholm Institute for Popular Health, more than half of Swedish men and women are not satisfied with their sex lives and a third of Swedish women say they are simply not interested in sex at all. Despite this, only a third of married men and less than a quarter of married women have been unfaithful. The Institute says Swedes have sex 6.5 times a month on average, with 30 to 35-year-olds having sex less frequently than 30 years ago.
So if the Swedes aren’t winning the bedroom Olympics, who is? According to the Wall Street Journal survey, Greeks are the most insatiable. Nearly one-quarter said a good sex life involved sex five or more times a week – more than double what most Europeans chose. These findings are supported by Durex’s annual survey of 317,000 people in 41 countries. It claims Greece is officially the most amorous country, with the Greeks having sex 138 times a year, well above the global average of 103. Greek goddesses live on, it seems.
So, DO NATIONAL STEREOTYPES TELL US anything? According to Dr Robert McCrae of the US National Institute on Ageing, they are all myths. Yet there is no doubt that cultural influences, and to a lesser extent genetics, can define certain national characteristics. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that winning the international league does not lead to contentedness. Swedish women may be the most liberated but the sexual revolution has ground to a halt. But in “macho” Brazil the women are far from oppressed and among the happiest. And could Italian women’s reputation for being the most stylish be connected to the fact that they are having so few babies? No baby sick on their cashmere sweaters. If Naomi Moriyama has her way we will be turning Japanese in 2006, despite the fact that trim figures and long lives are not making the natives happy. If these surveys show anything, it is that beauty, contentment and sex appeal cannot be produced to a formula. But that won’t stop us searching for the recipe for happiness. Prepare to eat a lot of sushi.
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