France's Sanitation?

Question

How many times a week do French people shower?

Do girls shave their pits?

Answer 1

No offense, but your friend sounds like an imbecile devoid of any intellectual curiosity. Derogatory comments about entire nationalities, ethnicities, races, etc are never objective or justified, ever. And degrading caricatures and stereotypes exist for any group you care to name. French people bathe daily. And, concerning other misconceptions regarding French people, most of them are not anti-Semitic, nor anti-American, nor rude. They do on the other hand tend to have a low threshold for inane idiocy, which some people might be inclined to misconstrue as rudeness.

Answer 2

Just to interject a bit of balance in the responses you are getting I should point out that there is (or more accurately, was) a tiny grain of truth in some of the things that are said about the French and their bathing and shaving habits.

Today, the Western world is largely homogenized and standards of what are taken to be matters of personal hygiene  are relatively uniform.

But many years ago, before most of the participants on this forum were born, this wasn't the case.

When I first visited France, some 35 years ago, things were still in transition. There were still a lot of French women who did not shave under their arms, people did not always bath daily, and many people did not use deodorant.

Ironically, the fact that things are the way they are today can be attributed, in part, to American advertising and globalization.

It was American advertising in the post war era that made the western world self conscious about the normal human aroma. Of course the trend started in America where the advertising originated and where the marketing of the myriad modern products designed to make everyone smell like flowers or a spice rack was centered.

While the first deodorant, Mum, was patented in the late 19th century in Philadelphia, the first modern deodorants did not become available until the 1940's after their development by a chemist in Chicago.

But it was advertising, especially TV advertising that made their use almost universal.

Another factor is the availability of convenient modern indoor plumbing.  In most of the world, including the United States, this is a far more recent phenomena than most young people realize.

In the USA, few rural households had indoor plumbing of any kind until the 1930's and even in big cities, baths were often a matter of filling up a tub with water heated on the stove until the 1940's. In Europe, with older housing stock, these innovations took longer to take hold. Indeed, when I first began visiting Paris, most of the inexpensive hotels had shared bathing facilities. Many still do.

So, one should note that in pre-war America, most Americans didn't bath every day, women outside of big cities usually didn't shave, and deodorants were not universally used. It was in the post war era that the norms changed. It was also in the post war era that the leisure travel industry arose and Americans began to flock to Europe.

But Americans, having been, by then, convinced that any vestige of normal human smells were offensive and signs of being dirty concluded, when visiting a Europe still in transition to the new norms, that the French were dirty and smelled bad.

So if some old geezer who hasn't been to France for 35-40 years told you those things then it is just barely possible that this is what he remembers. But anyone who has been recently knows its just not true.

Answer 3

thats just an urban legend. Girls in france do shave their "pits", and the french shower daily, just like americans. the french are actually really good about sanitation, they want their country to look good, as well as the people in it.

Answer 4

Du how often do guys from Ohio shave ... please enter the 21 st centtree.

Answer 5

Why don't american men shave their armpitts - ? Is it the islamic rule ?

  Do you know that nothing is better than a bath ? of course many obese people in your country ( US - I suppose - you did not precise ) cannot even sit down, if nobody ( two persons ) is there to lift them up back -

you have a wide right to my full compassion - you, your

"friend" and your pathetic belatedness -

Would you vote Obama ? Does he have body smells, him too ?

Answer 6

this month this question has been asked at least 10 times, why don't you try to be more creative?

it is not dirty not to shave, hair is here for a purpose, to protect sensitive areas and help body heat to come out, ask your doctor if you don't believe me...

as it obsesses you so much come here and I'll show you my hairy armpits! and be quick because it seems that it will be soon made illegal for girls to have just one hair elsewhere than on the head, as it is soooo disgusting! pouah girls not shaving their pits, what a shame! I agree with you it's a matter of sanitary emergency to check girls armpits. Sexism is not over in your country I see. And by the way I hope you are hairy as I only like hairy men.