Proletarians of the Proletariat: Women's Citizenship in France

See Christine Bard, Les filles de Marianne: Histoire des Féminismes, 1914–1940 (Paris, 1995). Many thanks to F. Blum, S. Chaperon, G. Houbre, M. Ríot-Sarcey, S. Wahnich, and M. Zancarini-Fournel, whose comments on this article were extremely helpful, and especially to F. Thébaud.

1. See Figures 1 and 2 for illustrations from L'Ouvrière, journal of the Communist party, on the subject of votes for women.

2. See Godineau, Dominique, Citoyennes tricoteuses: Les femmes du peuple à Paris pendant la Révolution française (Aix-en-Provence, 1988). In the 1830s, Louise Dauriat noted that these women revolutionaries were not citizens because “one is only a citizen when one exercises political, religious and civil rights.” See Riot-Sarcey, Michèle, La démocratie à l'épreuve des femmes (Paris, 1994), 107.

3. Rosanvallon, Pierre, Lesacre du citoyen: Histoire du suffrage universel en France (Paris, 1992).

4. Fraisse, Geneviève, Muse de la Raison: la démocratie exclusive et la différence des sexes (Aix-en-Provence, 1989).The question of the “French lag” was raised in a recent colloquium on “La démocratie à la française ou les femmes indésirables: 1793–1993,” University of Paris VII/Columbia University, December 9–11, 1993 (proceedings forthcoming, 1995).

5. In 1911 there were 7,217,000 employed women and 12,879,000 employed men; in 1936 there were 6,542,000 employed women and 12,650,000 employed men. Figures cited in Marchand, Olivier and Thélot, Claude, Deux Siècles de travail en France (Paris, 1991), 68.

6. See Guilbert, Madeleine, Les femmes et l'organisation syndicale avant 1914 (Paris, 1966).

7. See Christine Bard, “A la recherche des diversités féministes dans le Dictionnaire” (unpublished paper, 1993).

8. See Hobsbawm, Eric, “Sexe, symboles, vêtements et socialisme,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 23 (09 1978): 2–18.

9. See Zylberberg-Hocquard, Marie-Hélène, Féminisme et syndicalisme en France avant 1914 (Paris, 1978); and idem, Femmes et féminisme dans le mouvement ouvrier français (Paris, 1981).

10. Tilly, Louise and Scott, Joan, Les femmes, le travail et la famille (Marseille, 1987), 268.

11. See Zancarini-Fournel, Michelle, “Archéologie de la loi de 1892,” in Le genre de la protection sociale, ed. Auslander, Léora and Zancarini-Fournel, Michelle (Paris, forthcoming). The most radical feminists denounced this law prohibiting women from working nights.

12. See Monatte, Pierre, “La femme dans Ia Fédération du Livre,” La Vie Ouvrière, July 5, 1913.

13. Jennings, Jeremy. “The CGT and the Couriau Affair: Syndicalist Responses to Female Labor in France before 1914,” European History Quarterly 21 (1991):321–37.

14. See Robert, Jean-Louis, “La CGT et Ia famille ouvrière 1914–1918, première approche,” Le Mouvement social 116 (07–09 1981):47–66. See also Rebérioux, Madeleine, “Le mouvement syndical et les femmes jusqu'au Front populaire,” in Le féminisme et ses enjeux (Paris, 1988), 61–87.

15. Sowerwine, Charles, “Workers and Women in France Before 1914: The Debate over the Couriau Affair,” Journal of Modern History 55 (09 1983):411–41.

16. “Une féministe consciente préférera toujours au torche-cul des votard le pessaire occlus,” L'individualité féminine (Paris, 1914), 5.

17. See Louis, Marie-Victoire, Le droit de cuissage: France 1860–1930 (Paris, 1994).

18. See Guerrand, Roger-Henri and Ronsin, Francis, Lesexe apprivoisé: Jeanne Humbert et la lutte pour la contrôle des naissances (Paris, 1990).

19. See Perrot, Michelle. “L'éloge de la ménagère dans le discours des ouvriers français au XIXe siècle.” Romantisme 13–14 (1976): 105–121.

20. Frader, Laura Levine. “Working-Class Women and Social Citizenship in Interwar France,” Clio. Histoire, femmes et société (forthcoming, 1996).

21. Sohn, Anne-Marie, “Entre-deux-guerres,” in Histoire des Femmes en Occident, ed. Duby, Georges and Perrot, Michelle, vol. 5, Le XXème siècle, ed. Thébaud, Françoise (Paris, 1992), 112.

22. Le Droit des femmes (September–October 1929):237.

23. Bouvier, Jeanne, Mes mémoires: Une syndicaliste féministe, 1876–1935, ed. Armogathe, Daniel (Paris, 1983).

24. Sohn, Anne-Marie, “Exemplarité et limites de la participation féminine à la vie syndicale: les institutrices de la CGTU,” Revue d'Hisioire moderne et Contemporaine 24 (07–09 1977):391–414.

25. See Vignes, Madeleine, Le Journal des Dames: Féminisme, syndicalisme dans les PTT de 1924 à 1937 (Paris, 1992).

26. Pelletier, Madeleine, a Freemason, was successively (and sometimes simultaneously) an anarchist, Guesdist, Hervéist, Guesdist again, communist, leftist, and then activist for the Parti d'Unité Prolétarienne. She praised feminist autonomy while justifying women's parallel involvement in existing parties. See Sowerwine, Charles and Maignien, Claude, Madeleine Pelletier, une féministe dans l'arène politique (Paris, 1992); and Bard, Christine, ed., Madeleine Pelletier (1874–1939): Logique et infortunes d'un combat pour l'égalité (Paris, 1992).

27. One may wonder about this directive of the Second International, obviously inspired by the German situation where the break between “bourgeois” feminism and a particularly feminist and feminized workers' movement had been well in place since 1889. Things were somewhat different on the other side of the border. Republican, socialist, and humanist ideals brought feminists, socialists, and moderate trade unionists in close proximity. Rapproachement, though possible, never occurred.

28. See the presentation of Sohn, Anne-Marie on Bebel, Auguste, Le femme dans le passé, le présent et l'avenir (Paris, 1979; orig. 1891), I–XXI.

29. Sowerwine, Charles, Les femmes et le socialisme (Paris, 1978).

30. See Reynolds, Siân, “Women, Men and the 1936 Strikes in France,” The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Alexandre, Martin S. and Graham, Helen (Cambridge, 1989), 185–99.

31. Cited in Le Droit des Femmes, June 1936, 85.

32. Pelletier, Madeleine, “Vote des femmes et service militaire,” La Suffragiste 10 (12 1912).

33. Auclert, Hubertine (1848–1914) is considered to be the first French suffragist. It was she who coined the term “feminist” in 1882. See Hause, Steven C., Hubertine Auclert: The French Suffragette (New Haven, 1987).

34. See Klejman, Laurence and Rochefort, Florence, L'égalité en marche: Le féminisme sous la IlIe République (Paris, 1989).

35. Reprinted in Opinions de femmes: De la veille au lendemain de la Révolution Française, ed. Fraisse, Geneviève (Paris, 1989), 47–62.

36. Auclert, Hubertine, Egalité sociale et politique de la femme et de l'homme (Marseille, n.d.). See the detailed analysis of this by Rebérioux, Madeleine, Dufrancatel, Christiane, and Slama, Béatrice, “Hubertine Auclert et la question des femmes à l'‘immortel congrès’ (1879),” Romantisme 13–14 (1976):47–62.

37. Garrigou, Alain, Le vote ella vertu: Comment les Français sont devenus électeurs (Paris,1992), 97–109.

38. Auclert, , Egalité sociale.

39. Cited in “Les anciens combattants et le vote des femmes,” La Française, June 23, 1934.

40. Valéry, Paul, “Le suffrage des femmes,” La Revue de Paris (February 15, 1931).

41. Bulletin de l'Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes, 1914–1918, 64.

42. La Française, April 1, 1916.

43. Thébaud, Françoise, “Le féminisme à l'épreuve de la guerre,” in La tentation nationaliste 1914–1945, ed. Thalman, Rita (Paris, 1990), 17–46.

44. See Duby, and Perrot, , Histoire des Femmes, vol. 5, 27.

45. Auclert, Hubertine, Le vote des femmes (Paris, 1908).

46. Vérone, Maria, “Du vote des Indigènes au suffrage des femmes,” Le Droit des femmes, February 1937, 17–18.

47. Le Droit des Femmes, March 1935, 77.

48. The debate continues. See Dietz, Mary G., “Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem of Maternal Thinking,” Political Theory 13 (02 1985):19–37.

49. The defense of social citizenship became the orientation favored by feminists in countries such as the United States where equality of political rights had been obtained. See Sarvasy, Wendy, “Beyond the Difference versus Equality Policy Debate: Post Suffrage Feminism, Citizenship, and the Quest for a Feminist Welfare State,” Signs 17 (Winter 1992): 329–62.

50. See Blum, Françoise and Horne, Janet, “Féminisme et Musée social: 1916–1939,” Vie sociale 8–9 (08/09 1986):314–402; and Paul Gradvohl, “Les premières années de l'Association des surintendantes d'usine (1917–1939),” ibid., 377–443.

51. This phrase is that of Eleanor Roosevelt, feminist, pacifist, and nonconformist wife of the president of the United States; it illustrates a sentiment common to most feminists. Cited in Evans, Sara, Les Américaines: Histoire des femmes aux Etats-Unis (Paris, 1991), 294.

52. Bulletin de l'Union française pour le suffrage des femmes, 1918–1919, 27.

53. This way of exalting your maternity is simply another way of keeping you down. You are only something because you have the honor, sometimes, of producing a man, of carrying a son in your belly. As for me, ladies, I am not a wife, I am not a mother, and I declare that I do not consider myself less because of it. I am a woman and that is enough, wrote Deraismes, Maria in 1868 (Eve dans l'humanité, ed. Klejman, Laurence [Paris, 1990], 137).Madeleine Pelletier pushed this logic even further by recommending the “virilization of women” as a means of achieving individuation. See Christine Bard, “L'égalité des sexes et la virilisation des femmes,” in Madeleine Pelletier, 91–108.

54. If all feminists agreed to defend the rights of mothers, especially working mothers (and not excluding the rights of children), the defense or rejection of maternity in theoretical discussions occasioned sharp debate. See Knibiehler, Yvonne and Fouquet, Catherine, Histoire des mères (Paris, 1977); and Thébaud, Françoise, Donner la vie: La maternité en France dans l'entre-deux-guerres (Lyon, 1986).

55. The chapter of my dissertation devoted to this subject owes much to the problems posed by Thalmann, Rita in Etre femme sons le IIlème Reich (Paris, 1982). Under the circumstances the responsibility of women as subjects of history must be recognized, even when they are only “passive” or second-class citizens. Koonz, Claudia in Mothers in the Fatherland:Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (New York, 1986) also takes this approach.

56. This was true for the feminists but generally for a large number of other women as well. See Thébaud, Françoise, La femme au temps de la guerre de 14 (Paris, 1986).

57. Marc Bloch argued: “I will not make an exception for women, save only young mothers whose survival is essential for their children. They are absolutely right and I do not see how their courage is less natural, or less obligatory, than our own. L'Etrange défaite: Témoignage écrit en 1940 (Paris, 1990), 164.

58. Julliard, Jacques, Autonomie ouvrière: Etudes sur le syndicalisme d'action directe (Paris, 1988).

59. Mossuz-Lavau, Janine and Sineau, Mariette, Enquête sur les femmes et la politique en France (Paris, 1983);Sineau, Mariette, Des femmes en politique (Paris, 1988).

60. See Picq, Françoise, Libération des femmes: Les années-mouvement (Paris, 1993).

61. See Gaspard, Françoise, Servan-Schreiber, Claude, and Le Gall, Anne, Au pouvoir, citoyennes!: Liberté, égalité, parité (Paris, 1992). Note that both Hubertine Auclert and Monette Thomas, a social activist who was a member of the Comité d'Action Suffragiste, were already demanding parity for women in elected assemblies at the beginning of the century.