Sciences Po Paris, one of France's most prestigious universities found itself at the centre of a gender identity row last week after reprimanding its ballroom dancing teacher over her repetitive "sexist and discriminatory comments".
Sciences Po Paris said it had summoned the instructor, who has taught for eight years at the university, after complaints from students about her "discriminatory" language.
"Several students enrolled in a dance class, composed of 20 students, complained to the administration of Sciences-Po about sexist, discriminatory, degrading and minimising sexist and sexual violence comments made repeatedly by the teacher".
This prompted the school to "inform her [the teacher] of the need to stop her discriminatory comments", Sciences Po wrote in a press release last Thursday.
Leader, follower
According to the 53-year-old teacher, she decided to quit because the university wanted her to replace the words "men" and "women" with "leader" and "follower".
"I say women on one side and men on the other because in dance there is a role for the man and a role for the woman," Valerie, the teacher, told French news agency AFP, asking to be identified by her first name only.
"That's the reason that we went our separate ways," she said.
A student who attended several sessions at the beginning of the school year confirmed that "it was because she refused to use the terms follower-leader in her classes and insisted on keeping men-women that she chose to end her classes on her own."
The incident has quickly become a debate-show topic and the latest incident in an inter-generational culture war in France over questions of gender and racial identity.
Critics slammed Sciences Po for being "woke", but the university defended its policy in the name of being inclusive for people who do not conform to binary male-female gender roles.
Too 'old school'?
"We received a complaint from a student... backed up by several of them, according to which this teacher made remarks during her class that were discriminatory in nature in terms of the role of men in dance," said a spokesperson for the university.
"We asked her to desist from doing so and she did not wish to and decided not to continue with her classes."
Speaking to the Parisien newspaper, a student who had taken Valerie's classes said she was seen as "old school" and had made the class "feel uneasy."
Valerie told the same paper that "there was a notion of seduction" in ballroom dancing between a couple and "honestly two women dancing together, I find it ugly."
"I did not make any discriminatory or vexatious remarks. I acknowledge and reaffirm that I teach my classes as men and women. These are not insulting terms but real ones," she added.
"They're censoring me. I won't bow down to the dictatorship. Forget about being politically correct. What's next? Swan Lake with a hairy swan?".
(with AFP)
