Louboutins and politics

I am not one of those who cried out loudly when I learned that Minister France-Élaine Duranceau wore $1,200 Louboutin pumps for an announcement on social housing.

As with Catherine Dorion and her hoodie or Pauline Marois and her chic scarves, this controversy seems to me to reveal a “double standard” with regard to women in politics.

It would never occur to us to criticize a politician for wearing a luxury watch, a designer suit or an expensive silk tie. When he is criticized, it is for his political choices and not for his sartorial audacity. The kind of luxury that a female politician generally does not have if she dares to deviate from dictates about her physical appearance. Be beautiful, but not too much. Chic, but discreet. Not too sexy or too original. The air is neither too rich nor too poor. Neither too tired nor too made up. Neither too smiling nor too angry. Neither too severe nor too relaxed…

If it happens that a politician gets noticed for his choice of shoes, we are never in the well-stocked section of sexist comments reserved for women. We saw this for example with Bruno Marchand who, in the midst of a pandemic, while he was an illustrious unknown in municipal politics condemned to campaigning with a mask, made his brightly colored running shoes his trademark. A clever political marketing choice that was praised and even imitated. When Prime Minister François Legault, at the CAQ national convention last year, also swapped his patent leather shoes for casual espadrilles, not a single shirt was torn. No one needed to organize a “My espadrilles, my choice!” demonstration. », as was done in the wake of the controversy over the clothing of former solidarity MP Catherine Dorion.

“Women’s clothing choices do not belong to you,” reminded the organizers of a support campaign in social networks entitled “My hoodie, my choice” in November 2019. “Woodie, bra, mini-skirt, veil, overalls. It’s none of your business,” read the call to demonstrate.

We can now add “luxury pumps” to the list in the “None of your business” category.

What is entirely our business, however, are the political choices of our elected officials. Those of the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau – who has not particularly stood out for her concern for the common good in the management of the housing crisis in a context where real estate speculation is going well, where the Homelessness is exploding, where vulnerable seniors are put on the street and where women who are victims of violence have no place in shelters – certainly deserve to be criticized.

Since the start of her mandate, Minister Duranceau has made numerous missteps which reveal a misunderstanding of the role that the State must play in resolving the housing crisis and all the social issues linked to it.

Last November, she was blamed by the Ethics Commissioner of the National Assembly for having, shortly after her appointment to the Council of Ministers, “abusively favored the personal interests” of a lobbyist friend and former business partner¹. A “good faith” error, she said, following the commissioner’s investigation, recognizing that she had then acted as she did in the business world, without knowing that in politics , the rules were different.

We also remember her statement on the transfer of leases where she called on worried tenants to invest in real estate themselves.

A statement which was also followed by an apology, but not a withdrawal of the measure limiting the use of lease assignment in the housing law². More recently, there was also this other unfortunate statement about new shelters for women victims of violence being reduced to the status of doors that cost too much³.

That these missteps are multiplied by a minister in pumps or espadrilles changes nothing. These are the same missteps, the same errors of discernment which shed much more light on the lack of sensitivity of the CAQ government towards the most vulnerable tenants and its refusal to take them sufficiently into account in its public policies.

The dress does not make the minister. His ideas, yes.

1. Read “Duranceau favored the interests of a friend”

2. Read “The Minister of Housing engaged in real estate speculation, deplores QS”

3. Read “At $900,000 a door, the cost is excessive, judges Duranceau”