France Criticized for Failing to Punish Masculinity

(Commentary) – Are you a man who enjoys building muscles at the gym? Do you and your spouse believe in traditional roles for husbands and wives? According to the High Council for Equality Between Women and Men, you are a sexist, “Masculinist.”

The French consultative council on Wednesday warned France is failing to combat, what it terms, “misogynistic terrorism.”

Worryingly, the report goes to great pains to equate what is called, “paternalistic sexism,” with “hostile sexism.”

Hostile sexism is easy to understand. If you assault or insult a woman, you are guilty of hostile sexism. 10 million French, or 17% of the population, believe in acting or advocating for aggression towards women.

According to the High Council, “Paternalistic sexism is a falsely benevolent, everyday sexism that legitimizes a hierarchical distribution of men and women.”

In essence, the French government isn’t doing enough to prevent 7.5 million men and 5 million women from holding traditional views for roles between men and women – beliefs practiced by many Catholics in the world.

The 2026 report is based off the Toluna Harris Interactive survey which polled over three thousand people online who were aged 15 and above.

According to France 24, “The body calls on France – which "is lagging worryingly behind in addressing this phenomenon" – to implement a national strategy for preventing and combating this form of radicalization.”

Masculinism emerged in the 1980s, according to France 24, and “defends male supremacy and accuses women of being responsible for a decline in men's living conditions.”

Violence against women is a grave societal concern, but the High Council’s push to treat all men as potential terrorists should cause alarm among liberal, democratic countries.

The reports cover image shows a man reading a paper with a presumably male arms flexing his bicep. The article labels such a pursuit as sexism.

And by labeling the desire for traditional roles between husbands and wives as “falsely benevolent,” the High Council is pushing for intelligence agents to treat conservative Christians as potential terrorists since, in the minds of the councilmembers, just because one appears benevolent, doesn’t mean their beliefs aren’t a danger to society.