Our possible first female president

According to polls, there is a very serious chance that Marine Le Pen could win the French presidential election.  With the day of the presidential election in the USA a matter of days away, I thought I would reflect on Marine Le Pen and what it would be like to have her as our first female president.

Firstly, as a religious woman, I am at the very least uneasy about the idea of a female leader.  1Timothy 2:12: - "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."  Liberals would say that we aren't bound by something as unfashionable and last-season as the Holy Bible.  Halfway conservatives say this rule only applies to leadership positions within the church.

For practical reasons, the issue of men reporting to women is not an issue with my magazine, as it has no male employees, given the type of men who tend to be interested in fashion, who would never feel at home at my magazine (receivers of swollen goods, in other words).  My fashion magazine is all about clothing that Christians would feel entirely comfortable wearing and which is distinctly for one gender or the other (no androgynous clothing, an example of which is above): - this idea of "non-binary" is thoroughly wicked and contradicts "He made them male and female" (Genesis 5:2, Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6).  

It is possible for women to be leaders, but still under the rightful authority of their husbands.  This is reputedly the case with Queen Elizabeth II, who is a queen regnant (i.e. a queen in her own right, not a queen by virtue of her marriage to a king).  It is understood that her husband Prince Philip (whose politically incorrect comments I like) makes the important decisions on family matters.  It is the same in my household: - I am doing very well with my fashion magazine, but I joyfully render obedience to Bilal in accordance with Ephesians 5:22-24, who in turn does a very good job of fulfilling his obligations in Ephesians 5:25 (nobody is perfect: - if they were, they would not need a saviour).  Laws in virtually every country in the world guarantee my right to make my own decisions on this one, but I have so far been happy to waive this right and let Bilal make the decisions on when we try for children, for instance.

That subject covered, let me turn my attention to another very important issue: - Marine Le Pen is badly overweight!  I had hoped that if we had a female president, we would have somebody who is a quintessential example of female beauty in France.  Marie-Ségolène Royal (who thankfully lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election) is a good example of an attractive female French politician.  I asked Bilal what he thought, to which he replied that whilst he didn't view her as being "well buff" like me, she is "reasonably fit".  Zoë Williams, in her rant entitled "Cherchez la femme", gave several good examples of attractive female French politicians who know how to dress.  With all the attractive women who exist in France, it is a shame Marine Le Pen doesn't look like she knows much about how to look nice, though admittedly, her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is also "quite fit" in Bilal's estimation and has a nice figure in my estimation as well.

In terms of her politics, I much prefer the National Front's political positions when they are compared with other major political parties.  I am aware that they particularly appeal to Pied-Noirs (or "Pied Renois", as Bilal calls them).  Islam is the great enemy of what France stands for, though admittedly, the traditional French church (the Church of Rome) is not great either.  I am proud of France's history in the reformation, e.g. the Huguenots, John Calvin etc and am aware that many reformed congregations have existed in the vicinity of Strasbourg over the years.  Granted, there might be potential converts from Islam (like Bilal) coming into the country, but on balance, it would still be great to protect what is left of France's Christian heritage and reform it, bringing about a genuine religious revival in France.  The Le Pen family is very good at standing up to establishment figures who do their utmost to stop France being governed by real French people for real French people.

Marine Le Pen is certainly a very powerful and talented public speaker: - we need such people to put our cause across to the people.  I remember the famous rant she delivered against our commie socialist president François Hollande.  She seemed a little like Zoë Williams, who wrote a long rant about how women can supposedly only enter French politics if they have a powerful relative.  Honestly!  Zoë Williams rants about our great nation not giving women a chance unless they are thin, but yet when a fat woman is in the upper echelons of French politics, she continues to complain!

In conclusion, in spite of her lack of physical beauty, I am keen to see Marine Le Pen win next year's presidential election and make France great again.

Promoting bad habits

Apologies to my regular readers for the lack of postings.  Nobody said that managing a top-flight fashion magazine and being a wife and mother was going to be easy!  Our son has been reasonably easy to train to sleep through the night and is by no means an unusually difficult child, but no baby is easy to care for, hence why I have struggled.  As mentioned, we are expecting another baby, so there is the danger that my blogging will suffer even further and Bilal remains resolute in his desire for a large family, but we shall see how things go.

I read a rather shameful article which talked about how supposedly French women are fatter than people think they are.  To be honest, I think the article's author (Caroline Bell) seems somewhat covetous of French women's effortless perfection, as well as somewhat deluded.

The topic of fat-shaming has been in the news a lot recently, in particular with a Venezuelan lady named Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo in the context of the American president regarding the Miss Universe contest.  Inevitably, Godwin's Law has been proven correct in this instance, as she has compared Donald Trump with Hitler, accusing him of using all sorts of derogatory names against her, given that she gained 12 pounds during her reign as Miss Universe.  She talked about how she was 116 pounds when she won the Miss Universe contest and was anorexic and bulimic.  Putting aside the fact that 116 pounds is not much of an achievement as far as a Frenchwoman is concerned, one thing I have historically admired about the USA is its supposed culture of personal responsibility.  As a believing woman, I categorically say that many of the things Donald Trump has said are silly, but blaming Donald Trump for your anorexia and bulimia is ridiculous and this woman is stretching the truth.  For a start, anorexia and bulimia cannot co-exist, as anorexia diagnoses are given to people below normal weight and bulimia diagnoses to people at and above normal weight, if they do the various things associated with the conditions.  As Mireille Guiliano says, "French women choose their own indulgences and compensations.  They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium".  Note the last part in particular: - blaming someone else for your anorexia or bulimia indicates a lack of personal responsibility.  A Frenchwoman knows that purging is not the way to achieve our impossibly perfect figures.  We have a magic phrase to achieve our impossibly perfect figures: - "la moitié, s'il vous plaît!"  Unfortunately, this woman is now a US citizen and can therefore vote in a couple of weeks: - neither I nor anyone else in our church who I know of has any liking for Hillary Clinton.

I am digressing.  I say that Caroline Bell is jealous because she feels the need to talk French women's wonderful figures down by talking down the effortlessly perfect figures that we have: - I am quite sure that I would have noticed it if her figures were accurate.  I am interested to know how many people they translate into, but it is hard to discern, as her figures are too well-rounded, MDR!  Authors like Zoë Williams like to slag off French women, whereas authors like Caroline Bell like to insinuate that our figures really aren't that great.  She is also deluded because she actually thinks the women shown in the article look great.  *Cough!*  As a fashion editor with a steely eye for the details everything to do with fashion, I think they look awful!  Plus they are setting a bad example to their compatriots who need to take more pride in their impossibly perfect figures that they have laboured so diligently to achieve!  We work very hard to teach our daughters (admittedly, I don't have any yet) to teach them how to look great and we don't need people coming along and promoting plus-sized models and journalists to give them the message that they can slack off!

I note the part about how Lalaa Misaki goes into many French shops and is told they don't have anything in her size.  Why should French stores stock clothes for plus-sized models when they know that being thin is necessary for success and French women are thin and it is therefore an obvious business decision to target clothes for thin women?  Also, being fat looks horrid, so why should clothing manufacturers aiming to cultivate an image of exclusivity produce clothes for women who will never ever look good in anything?

My message to impossibly dainty Frenchwomen out there is be proud of what you have worked hard to achieve and don't let some haters in the public eye downgrade your achievements!

Pregnant again

I am delighted to announce that, having had a baby in April, I am a few months pregnant with another baby.  Bilal and I planned have a large family for as long as marriage was on the cards and we are delighted that our heavenly Father has elected to bless us with another baby.

British and American women like to play the martyr regarding their post-pregnancy weight and tell everyone they could not help it.  As I demonstrated, it is entirely possible to be exactly the same weight before and after pregnancy: - I weighed myself on my wedding day and just after giving birth and there was no change.  A Frenchwoman knows how to eat properly and stay thin, whatever her stage of life, whether she be a growing adolescent, in her 20s prime of life (what Zoë Williams calls the "young filly" season), pregnancy, middle age, the menopause (presumably what Zoë Williams calls the "old bag" season), old age and even very old age (and the associated reduction in physical activity).  Regarding the last one , I am thinking of Jeanne Calment (from nearby Arles), who died aged 122, though admittedly, she only had one child (he died, as did his son, leaving her with no heirs).  She claimed to eat nearly 1kg of chocolate a week: - I would say that either old age affected her memory (in spite of claims she was mentally intact until the end), or she was prone to telling tall stories.  Unless she was abstaining from all other food, she would probably have become enormously fat: - as Mireille Guiliano pointed out, French women will normally carry round chocolate in their handbags and have a single square each day to give them their daily chocolate fix.

Our son tended to wake up several times during the night (though he started sleeping through the night aged six weeks) and the work involved with looking after him is generally about average for a small baby (a lot, in other words).  Bilal works in a safety-critical environment, so there is no question that his sleep is most important.  As well as taking care of his sleeping habits, he has been a very attentive father, including during the night.  He took the restrictions imposed on our lifestyle by parenthood in his stride, but then he has always been used to responsibility (the various children's ministries at the church, his family's livestock when in Mali etc).  Bilal has never been a male who lives a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - many men who have approached me have unfortunately been that way.  He has always been self-disciplined and this has served him well in life.  None of this treating life as one big party and going off on gap years, accomplishing nothing except clubbing and acquiring a cannabis addiction.  Maybe parenthood isn't quite such a drastic change if you are already used to responsibility?

With this in mind, Bilal wasted no time in expanding our family.  I wasn't checking, but I realised that some of the signs of pregnancy had arrived in the past week, so I went about properly confirming this.  Bilal was naturally delighted: - it is obvious that he has desired a big family throughout his life.  Bilal has always felt lonely as the only believer in his family and I am delighted that he is able to lead a growing believing household like this.

Of course, I plan to continue showing the world that a Frenchwoman has enough self-discipline to remain thin during pregnancy and still give birth to an entirely healthy baby.