Ever since I began working on the problem of women and socialism in France, I have been confronted by people who wished me to confirm one or another of the big generalisations which spring to everyone's mind when women in southern European countries are mentioned and to which even historians are prone in their cups: Frenchmen are more sexist than men of other countries, because of ‘Latin’ or ‘southern’ conditions, climate, race, or whatever; Frenchwomen are more ‘womanly’ or subordinate to men because of the Catholic church, Mediterranean traditions, or again something ‘Latin’. To be sure, such arguments are rarely made so baldly as this. I put them forth in this manner not to raise straw men or women but to demonstrate the kinds of problems which arise when we move to large-scale ideas to answer specific questions. The point I wish to make is that Occam's razor is needed here: we should not posit more entities than are needed to explain a phenomenon.

In this case, the phenomenon under discussion is the fact that French feminism never got off the ground compared to English, American, and Australian feminism, and that French socialism never reached masses of women compared to the German socialist women's movement. Because these comparisons are generally only implicit, the usual assumption is that the English or German case is somehow normative and thus needs no explanation, while the French case is abnormal and has to be explained. In fact, of course, both types of case require explanation.