Debating the Woman Question in the French Third Republic, 1870–1920

A magisterial reconstruction and analysis of the heated debates around the 'woman question' during the French Third Republic.

Karen Offen (Author)

9781107188044, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 January 2018

710 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.9 cm, 0.14 kg

'One finishes reading Offen's books in deep gratitude for the monumental labor that she invested in writing them. Thanks to the author's sustained, forthright pursuit of this new narrative in French history, many more topics now deserve further study … what elements of France's specificity in the contested woman question contributed to the country's slow, troubled modernization? What role, if any, did the debate have in France's overseas territories where race and ethnicity were also at play, especially in the interwar period? Such queries naturally arise from Offen's magisterial work, its shrewd insights and compelling detail …' James Smith Allen, The Journal of Modern History

Karen Offen offers a magisterial reconstruction and analysis of the debates around relations between women and men, how they are constructed, and how they should be organized, that raged in France and its French-speaking neighbors from 1870 to 1920. The 'woman question' encompassed subjects from maternity and childbirth, and the upbringing and education of girls to marriage practices and property law, the organization of households, the distribution of work inside and outside the household, intimate sexual relations, religious beliefs and moral concerns, government-sanctioned prostitution, economic and political citizenship, and the politics of population growth. The book shows how the expansion of economic opportunities for women and the drop in the birth rate further exacerbated the debates over their status, roles, and possibilities. With the onset of the First World War, these debates were temporarily placed on hold, but they would be revived by 1916 and gain momentum during France's post-war recovery.

General introduction: 'what do women want?' and quotations
Part I. Familiarization: Romance with the Republic, 1870s–1889: 1. Relaunching the Republican campaign for women's rights: 2. Educators, medical and social scientists, and population experts debate the woman question, 1870–1889
3: The politics of the family, women's work, and public morality, 1870–1890
4. The revolutionary centennial: promoting women and women's rights at the 1889 International Exposition in Paris
Part II. Encounter: the Third Republic Faces Feminist Claims, 1890–1900: Quotations and introductory remarks
5. The birth and 'take-off' of feminism in republican France
6: Rights or protection for working women?
7. Must maternity be women's form of patriotism? 8. The new century greets the woman question, 1900
Part III. Climax: Mainstreaming the Woman Question, 1901–1914: Quotations and introductory remarks
9. Building a force to reckon with the Republic: The Conseil National des Femmes Françaises and its allies, 1900–1914
10. Defining, historicizing, contesting, and defending feminism: early 20th century developments
11. Refocusing the state: depopulation, maternity, and the quest for a woman-friendly state
12. Emerging labor issues: equal pay for equal work, travail à domicile, and women's right to work
13. 'The alpha and omega of our demands' – the women's suffrage campaigns heat up, 1906–1914
Part IV. Anti-Climax: the Great War and its Aftermath: Quotations and introductory remarks
14. The Great War and the woman question
15. 'Half the human race': epilogue and conclusion
Afterword
Appendix: important dates for the woman question debates
Index.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD]