Sisters or Citizens?
Women and Socialism in France since 1876

This book is a study of the responses of working women to the oppression they faced both as women and as workers in the nineteenth century.

Charles Sowerwine (Author)

9780521089906, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 November 2008

272 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

A century ago, just as today, working women faced oppression both as women and as workers. On which front would they fight? Were they sisters of the feminists, or citizens, members of the workers' movement? This book is a study of their responses to this dilemma. The French feminist movement claimed to speak for working women as well as for their wealthier sisters. But by the end of the nineteenth century, most politically minded working women rejected feminism, which seemed to them a movement for middle-class women.

Part I. Feminism and socialism 1876–1900: 1. Women and the beginnings of the socialist movement 1876–82
2. Socialist parties in search of women 1882–99
3. Feminists in search of a mass base: the rise and fall of social feminism 1889–1900
Part II. Origins of the socialist women's movement 1899–1914: 4. The Groups Feminists Socialists 1899–1905
5. Women and the SFIO 1905–14
6. The Groups des Femmes Socialistes 1913–14
Part III. Development and decline of the socialist women's movement 1914–79: 7. The First World War and socialist women 1914–20
8. Reconstruction, decline, and rebirth 1921–79.

Subject Areas: History [HB]