Are French women that insecure?

I found it hallucinating that such exercises are paid for Sécurité Sociale…?

A FRENCH+MAN’s comment would be interesting.

History will be made today, as in this post, not only I won’t bash French women, but I will even praise them!!!

But let’s start by saying that until a few years ago, I always assumed that “postnatal rehabilitation” was widespread all over the world (the rich world, of course…) and it came to a shock to me when I realized, that no, it was not that common at all.
Then I looked around and realize something. In many countries, when women become mothers they almost stop being women. They change the way they dress, their haircut, pretty much everything.

Well, in France, it’s not the case. In France, one can be a woman and a mother at the same time. It’s in your mind, but in your body too, and from what I understand giving birth is quite taxing for the body, most women never fully recover (understand: lose the extra weight they gain, and I’m not exactly sure how it affects down there even if I have some assumptions that I won’t go into as I’d like this blog to stay for all audiences and not be X rated).
So to regain shape, one needs physical rehab and therapy, just after any other very taxing event to the body.
The fact that Sécurité Sociale (National Health Care) pays for it is totally logical, it doesn’t deal with cosmetics, but with body integrity, just like any other physical rehab.

Now, as Nathalie commented in the previous post, the question tells a lot about the culture of the person asking…
No, Linda, I won’t make assumptions about you (even though, I always assumed the Czech were more open about that), but comment a few lines in the article that I found interesting.
First of all, the woman that wrote the article (J. Di Giovanni) recognizes that she is an Anglo prude, that’s good, but it’s pretty much everywhere in an article.

First, I want to comment on the “it’s for your husband.” It sounds like French women do that to please their husbands (and I think Linda understood it that way too, seeing how she asked the question), but this is Di Giovanni that misunderstood something here.
French women do postnatal rehab for themselves, not for their husbands. I’m sure most French men don’t even know such a thing exists. If the nurse said that, it’s because, while French women are more open about sex than most other countries, they still have some restrain, and saying “it’s for your husband” is a euphemism meaning: “it’s for you.”

Then, I can’t help being amused by the fact that –as she says- many Anglo expats go to England or the US to give birth or other major things that require a hospital (or they go to the American Hospital in Neuilly). I can understand the language barrier issue, but more often it’s the idea to go to a French hospital (French as in “Foreign”) that scares them.
If they had done their research, maybe they’ll know that French hospitals are some of the best in the world, if not the best, and are zillion times cheaper than American ones (don’t know about the UK though).
Even a few days ago, one of the students where I work was queasy about going to a French doctor, because of lack of trust in the French health system.
When will Americans stop thinking they’re the best in every field, when they’re not…
But I guess it’s part of the disinformation that’s going on in the country because of the big “healthcare lie” over there (the fact that no national healthcare means pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and other health related companies can make a shitload of money on the health of the American people and those sorts of things).
But I’m getting carried away here (the topic is quite… topical these days, that’s why.)

“He had actually said make love, not have sex.”
I think she’s reading a little bit too much into that. The doctor must have said “make love” because he may not be totally bilingual and “make love” is a literal translation of “faire l’amour” which is the best way to call the act in a proper manner to somebody you don’t really know. For a non-bilingual French person (and even to a bilingual one actually) “have sex” sounds way more crude than “make love”.

Then, she says that French women have lots of babies. Well, more than Germany or Japan, that’s for sure, but I doubt that the birth rate in France is much higher than other Western countries (I’m sure some official numbers are available online, you know where to look), the average is about 2 kids.

But the conclusion to all of this is where I began: in France, it’s not incompatible to be a mother and a woman at the same time.