A Study of Working Women in Selected Postwar Texts by French Women Writers
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A Study of Working Women in Selected Postwar Texts by French Women Writers Janine Kellett PhD Department of French University of Glasgow August 2000 © Janine Kellett 2000 ProQuest Number: 13834009 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13834009 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 GLASGOW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THESIS ABSTRACT This thesis analyses the literary representations of working women by the following French women writers: Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Christiane Rochefort, Gisele Halimi, Marie Cardinal, Janine Bregeon, Claire Etcherelli, Annie Ernaux, Annie Leclerc, Dorothee Letessier, Michele Fitoussi and Emmanuele Bernheim. A twenty-two page introduction starts from the premise that ‘le travail n’est pas une panacee’. The writings are contextualised in relationship to the social, political and economic developments during the postwar period. In chapter one, ‘Politics, Language and Social Realism’ there follows an analysis of the importance of the events May 1968 and an examination of the problematic politics of French feminist language. However, the main focus of the chapter is on the social realism of women’s lived experience. In chapter two, ‘L’Ecole des femmes’, a critical investigation of the female curriculum and career prospects is carried out, while particular attention is paid to Beauvoir’s critique of the education of girls during the period. Moreover, the inconsistencies between Beauvoir’s memoirs and her fictions are highlighted. Further sections describe the education of French girls in the 1950s at the hands of Catholic teachers who instruct them that ‘Maman c’est le plus beau metier’. Gender stereotyping at home and school is examined at length. The upbringing and socialisation of female children is. then discussed under the headings ‘Parental influence’, ‘Sex education and taboos’ and ‘Peer and social pressures’. Chapter three, ‘Housework: the Death of Romance’, focuses on the domestic labour debate and propounds the thesis that social class and sexual stratification constitute a double oppression for the ‘second sex’. Indeed it is even suggested that housework turns women’s cherished interiors, on which they lavish so much misplaced love and attention, into workhouses. The psychological effects of this are shown to be disastrous. Chapter four, ‘O. S. toute sa vie, c’est pas une vie’ proceeds from Weil’s courageous social experiment, ‘Journal d’usine’, to the worm’s eye view of the factory floor as perceived by the protagonists of Letessier and Etcherelli. The workers’ oppression is exacerbated by the sexual harassment to which they are routinely subjected and the deleterious effects of the assembly line on their health . Two final sections on ‘Women and trade unions’ and ‘Shop and office work’ complete a pessimistic scenario which shows that the contribution made by female employees is seldom recognised at its true value. In chapter five, ‘Professional women and maternal guilt’, two major texts by Marie Cardinal, Le Passe empiete and Les Grands Desordres are selected in order to foreground the perennial difficulties women face in reconciling work and family. The conclusion however suggests that some of the most recent sociological and fictional texts mark a definitive progression in women’s sexual and professional emancipation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to my supervisors, Christine Jimack and Elizabeth Moles, for all their help and support in writing up this thesis. I should also like to record my gratitude to Glasgow’s French Department for encouraging me throughout the protracted process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.............................................................................................................................................. 1 Le travail n’est pas une panache .................................................................................................... 5 1. Politics, language and social realism............................................................................................. 23 French feminists and work: liberty or slavery?............................................................................. 23 The influence of May 1968 .............................................................................................................. 24 The politics of language and the role of feminist fiction ...............................................................27 The social realism of women’s experience ....................................................................................35 2. L’Ecole des femmes........................................................................................................................... 39 The female curriculum and career prospects ............................................................................... 40 Beauvoir and education: inconsistencies between her memoirs and her fictio n...................................................................................................................................................41 Education and gender stereotyping................................................................................................50 Upbringing and socialisation ............................................................................................................65 I. Parental influence ...........................................................................................................65 II. Sex education and taboos ........................................................................................... 75 III. Peer and social pressures .......................................................................................... 78 3. Housework: The death of romance................................................................................................ 86 The domestic labour debate ............................................................................................................89 Social class and sexual stratification: a double oppression ........................................................ 91 Housework or workhouse? .............................................................................................................. 110 Psychological effects ........................................................................................................................ 113 4. O. S. Toute sa vie, c’est pas une vie............................................................................................... 130 A socialist experiment: Weil’s ‘Journal d’usine’ ............................................................................ 132 Gender and health.............................................................................................................................136 The worm’s eye view of the factory floor ....................................................................................... 138 Sexual harassment ........................................................................................................................... 145 The assembly line ..............................................................................................................................147 Women and trade unions..................................................................................................................157 Shop and office work ........................................................................................................................ 161 5. Professional women and maternal guilt ........................................................................................169 Autobiography and writing from the body ...................................................................................... 173 Courtroom drama and myth ............................................................................................................. 174 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................189 Evolution: the old and the new protagonists..................................................................................191 Appendix....................................................................................................................................................197 Bibliography. 203 1 INTRODUCTION The considerable increase in the number of women-authored texts published in France in the last three decades has been matched by an equally significant increase in womeri’s participation in the workplace. In this study I shall be examining the developing discourses and representations of working women in postwar French women’s writing, and situating the novels in the context of the relevant social, political and economic developments in France since 1945. I have opted for texts that depict as diverse a range of working women as possible: from working-class housewives to middle-class homemakers; from factory and office