France is the home of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, yet women did not vote until 1945, many years later than their peers in other countries. In a country where civil rights had long been a rallying cry, women were not second-class citizens--they were not citizens at all. In this fascinating and ground-breaking study, Paul Smith assesses why Frenchwomen were repeatedly refused the rights of citizenship and examines the political relationships established by French feminists in order to achieve their goal: one woman, one vote.
Traditional histories of the French Third Republic often overlook the extent to which concerns about the place of women and the health of the family influenced the course of government policy, particularly the direction of welfare reform. Combining the approaches of social and political history, Gender and the Politics of Social Reform in France, 1870-1914 offers a new perspective on women's lives in the Third Republic -- and on the emergence of the welfare state in general -- by looking at the attitudes, actions, and policies of the men who held political power. Addressing themes in the newly invigorated field of welfare-state history, contributors to this volume offer evidence that social reform in France began far earlier than is usually supposed and was a response by republican politicians and social activists to a declining population growth rate. As this demographic crisis inspired efforts to improve maternal and child health and increase the birth rate, motherhood was redefined as a public mission deserving of public support. Even though the eventual reforms resulted in greater recognition of women's role in the proper functioning of society and provided for programs beneficial to infants, the legislation enacted by the men in power was decidedly patriarchal in its scope, treating women as children rather than equals. Contributors are Elinor Accampo, Linda L. Clark, Rachel G. Fuchs, Theresa McBride, Mary Lynn Stewart, and Judith F. Stone. "This important and timely collection of essays is a valuable contribution to this reinvigorated scholarly field. The history of the welfare state has for too long been in the suffocating grip of specialists in institutional historywith no vision of the wider historical setting, or has been regarded as an addendum to the history of labor organization and revolutionary socialism. This volume argues clearly and persuasively for a new orientation." -- Robert Nye, Oregon State University
A repositioning of French women's struggle for suffrage within the distinct cultural landscape of the masculine honour system. Whether activists demanded admission to the popular ritual of the duel or publicly shamed men for their extramarital sexual behaviour, they appropriated extralegal honour codes to enact new civic and familial identities.
Sian Reynolds challenges the prevailing assumption that women had little influence or power in France during the interwar period. She combines extensive empirical research with revealing insights into France's political history and women's history.
France's Third Republic confronts historians and political scientists with what seems a paradox: it is at once France's most long-lived experiment with republicanism and a regime remembered primarily for chronic instability and spectacular scandal. From its founding in the wake of France's humiliation at the hands of Prussia to its collapse in the face of the Nazi Blitzkrieg, the Third Republic struggled to consolidate the often contradictory impulses of the French revolutionary tradition into a set of stable democratic institutions. To Be a Citizen is not an institutional history of the regime, but an exploration of the political culture gradually formed by the moderate republicans who steered it. In James R. Lehning's view, that culture was forced to reconcile conflicting views of the degree of citizen participation a republican form of government should embrace. The moderate republicans called upon the entire nation to act as citizens of the Republic even as they limited the ability of many, including women, Catholics, and immigrants, to assume this identity and to participate in political life. This participation, based on universal male suffrage alone, was at odds with the notion of universal citizenship—the tradition of direct democracy as expressed in 1789, 1793, 1830, and 1848. Lehning examines a series of events and issues that reveal both the tensions within the republican tradition and the regime's success. It forged a political culture that supported the moderate republican synthesis and blunted the ideal of direct democracy. To Be a Citizen not only does much to illuminate an important chapter in the history of modern France, but also helps the reader understand the dilemmas that arise as political elites attempt to accommodate a range of citizens within ostensibly democratic systems.
Joan Wallach Scott's interpretation of the dilemma of feminism underlines the paradox that arises as theorists introduced the very idea of difference they had sought to eliminate by arguing from the standpoint that difference was irrelevant.