Aging & Wisdom Quote by Catherine Deneuve

Deneuve’s line lands like a coolly delivered diagnosis, not a rallying cry. The first sentence sounds almost gentle, even resigned: “relatively few” role models, as if scarcity were an unfortunate accident. Then she pivots and names the system that manufactures that scarcity: “a society that is ruled by men.” The rhetorical move matters. She refuses the comfortable explanation that young people simply aren’t looking hard enough; she points to the pipeline that decides who gets visibility, authority, and mythmaking power in the first place.

The intent is less to crown new heroines than to expose how role models are produced: by institutions that reward certain kinds of ambition, charisma, and “seriousness” when they come in male form. Coming from a French screen icon whose career has been built inside the machinery of male gaze and male authorship, the subtext is pointed: even when women are famous, they’re often framed as muses, scandals, or symbols, not as people who set terms. That makes “role model” feel like a job women are asked to perform for social good, while men get to simply be complex, contradictory individuals.

There’s also a generational bite. Deneuve’s stardom spans decades where women’s public power expanded, yet the center of gravity stayed stubbornly male. The line compresses that frustration into something blunt enough to travel: if you want more models, you don’t just need better stories - you need different gatekeepers.