Women in France Since 1789 EUROPEAN STUDIES SERIES

Women in France since 1789 EUROPEAN STUDIES SERIES

General Editors: Colin Jones, Richard Overy, Joe Bergin, John Breuilly and Patricia Clavin

Published

Robert Aldrich Greater France: A Short History of French Overseas Expansion Nigel Aston Religion and Revolution in France, 1780–1804 Yves-Marie Bercé The Birth of Absolutism: A History of France, 1598–1661 Susan K. Foley Women in France since 1789: The Meanings of Difference Janine Garrisson A History of Sixteenth-Century France, 1483–1589 Gregory Hanlon Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800 Michael Hughes Early Modern Germany, 1477–1806 Matthew Jefferies Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871–1918 Dieter Langewiesche Liberalism in Germany Martyn Lyons Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution Hugh McLeod The Secularisation of Western Europe, 1848–1914 Robin Okey The Habsburg Monarchy, c. 1765–1918 Pamela M. Pilbeam Republicanism in Nineteenth-Century France, 1814–1871 Helen Rawlings Church, Religion and Society in Early Modern Spain Tom Scott Society and Economy in Germany, 1300–1600 Wolfram Siemann The German Revolution of 1848–49 Richard Vinen France, 1934–1970 Women in France since 1789 The Meanings of Difference

SUSAN K. FOLEY Associate Professor, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington Principal Fellow, Department of History, University of Melbourne © Susan K. Foley 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-333-61992-6 hardback ISBN 978-0-333-61993-3 ISBN 978-0-230-80214-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-80214-8 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10987654321 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 For Jeremy and Marcelle Contents

Preface ix Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: The French Revolution and Gender Politics – Creating a World of Difference 1

Part I The Social Structures of Difference: The Nineteenth-Century Gender Order 25 1 Elite Women 27 2 Urban Working Women 56 3 Peasant Women 80

Part II Sex and Citizenship, 1814–1914 103 4 Women, Politics and Citizenship, 1814–1852 105 5 Women and the Creation of Republican France, 1852–1914 129

Part III Women in the Era of the Great Wars, 1890–1944 153 6 ‘New Women’ in the Era of the Great War, 1890s–1920s 155 7 Taking Sides: Women in the 1930s 185 8 Vichy France: Reviving the ‘Natural Woman’, 1940–1944 210

Part IV Transformations and Continuities, 1945–2003 233 9 From the Liberation to ‘Women’s Liberation’, 1945–1975 235 10 The Politics of ‘Women’s Place’ since 1975 266

vii viii CONTENTS

Conclusion: Equality and ‘Difference’ – Women’s Lives from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Century 288

Notes 298 Suggestions for Further Reading 350 Index 359 Preface

What can we know of the lives of women in France over the past 200 years? In The Second Sex, published in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir asserted that woman is ‘a free and autonomous being like all human creatures’, but ‘finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other’ (p. 29). This means that we often find it difficult to know the lives of women of the past, more difficult perhaps than to know those of men. But it also means that the lives of women are conditioned by their gendered experience, that they nevertheless live their lives in the society and culture they share with men, and that they have struggled, at least since the French Revolution, to cease to be other and to gain control of their lives through politics. This book seeks to present the lives of women in France since the Revolution appeared to open new possibilities to them but instead sought to enshrine their difference. The book focuses on women’s gendered experience, on their lives in society, and on their struggle to gain a place as actors in the world of politics. Above all it focuses on the tension between difference and equality, between women’s place in a ‘separate sphere’ and their engagement with the world of public life and citizenship. Nineteenth-century French society was distinguished by deep divisions based on class and milieu as well as on gender. The lives of women in this society must be understood in their different contexts, as peasant women, urban working women and elite women. Part I of this book is thus a study of women’s lives in these three main contexts. Their gendered experience, however, gives rise to efforts to shape the world through politics, initially on the part of elite women. During the nineteenth century, their efforts must take the form of indirect participation. Part II of this book is thus a study of women’s indirect participation in politics as well as of their struggle for direct participation, which we know as feminism.

ix x PREFACE

In the twentieth century, women found themselves called upon to act publicly more and more, even before they obtained the suffrage and even by organisations, like the Catholic Church and fascist parties, which proclaimed that women’s primary duties were in the home, as mothers and helpmeets of men. Part III of this book is thus a study of women’s increasingly public activity in the first half of the twentieth century. At the same time, the social and economic forces unleashed by modern capitalism tended to blur if not eliminate the differences between rural and urban women, and between working women and elite women. Their lives were of course different, but in the second half of the twentieth century they all partook increasingly of one national culture. Part IV of this book is thus a study of women increasing their sphere of activity and of their increasingly similar lives. We move in this way from a primarily social interpretation, at a time when women had little voice, to a more political interpretation, at a time nearer our own when women have gained a significant voice and appear to be on the way to gaining yet more chance to speak for themselves. This shift in interpretation corresponds to the shift in women’s position, from ‘Other’ excluded from political action to an increasingly integrated if still ‘Other’, more and more engaged in politics. This may seem like an old-fashioned story of continuing progress. It is not, certainly, a story of straightforward and even progress. Poor and especially immigrant women are still left out of the majority culture. Gains have been won and lost. Nevertheless, overall, French women in the twenty-first century have significantly larger spheres of activity available to them for their self-realisation. The story of the shift from social to political is the story of women’s increasing control over their own lives. Acknowledgements

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington supported the research for this book most generously with periods of leave and financial grants. Without that support the project would not have been viable and I am most grateful. The Library staff, particularly those in inter-loan services, have been enormously helpful in meeting my needs and it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge their professional expertise and friendly support. My friends in the History Department (now Programme) at Victoria University of Wellington have acted as sounding boards and critics as well as sources of encouragement. Somehow they knew when to adopt each of those stances. Their friendship has made the writing of this book a pleasure. I also thank colleagues in the History Department of the University of Melbourne for their support and interest in the project. I owe a special debt to Dr Alice Garner for finding me some fabulous things when I needed them. Her wonderful research skills, as well as her practical support and suggestions, have been invaluable. This book draws on the research and knowledge of the many historians whose work I have enjoyed, and been challenged by, over many years. Those debts are not always explicit, although they have been acknowledged as far as possible in the notes to each chapter. Translations from the French are my own unless otherwise indicated. Finally, I must acknowledge the special contribution of those close to me, without which this book would never have been completed. The tolerance and love of my family, particularly Jeremy and Marcelle, are constantly treasured. Charlotte and Kerry have been pillars of strength. I thank, in particular, Charles Sowerwine, for his intellectual companionship and generosity, for his heroic editorial interventions, and for his unfailing support.