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Gender and Sexuality in Modern France

Gender and Sexuality in Modern France. From the French Revolution to the fin de siècle. Three concepts. History of Women Social reality Category as taken for granted History of Gender The way ‘masculinity’ and ‘ feminity ’ are projected Discourses about sexual difference.

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Gender and Sexuality in Modern France

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  1. Gender and Sexuality in Modern France From the French Revolution to the fin de siècle

  2. Three concepts • History of Women • Social reality • Category as taken for granted • History of Gender • The way ‘masculinity’ and ‘feminity’ are projected • Discourses about sexual difference

  3. History of Women • Marginalized in historical studies until 1970s • Recovery of their role in history • From above • Great women: salonnières, Marie-Antoinette, Olympe de Gouges, Mme de Staël • From below • Peasants, workers, market women

  4. History of Gender • Focus on ‘the feminine’, ‘the masculine’ as discourses • Ways of imagining subjectivity • Conceptual boundaries that constrain but also create possibilities

  5. Pink and BlueGendered colors?

  6. Virgin Mary: Blue

  7. JesusSpanish Renaissance

  8. JesusGiotto, late medieval Italian

  9. American marketing: 1920s-1940s

  10. Jacques Louis DavidOath of the Horatii, 1784

  11. Gender Hierarchy Old Regime • Particularist society: everyone had a specific place in the ‘Great Chain of Being’ • God • Angels • Man • Woman • Animals • Social hierarchy • Privileges defined differently

  12. Treatise on the Jurisprudence of Injurious Speech - 1775 • Punishment in function of the status of who was insulted • Women and children at the bottom of the list, after God, King, Ministers, clerics, Nobles, Magistrates, Writers, Distinguished Citizens, Bourgeois, Commoners

  13. Enlightenment and Gender • Rousseau: conceptions of equality • Equal but different? The limits of equality • Critique of ‘civility’ and ‘civilization’ as feminine • Public sphere for men • Domestic sphere for women

  14. Rousseau • ‘A home whose mistress is absent is a body without a soul which soon falls into corruption… • A woman outside of her home loses her greatest luster and, despoiled of her real ornaments, she displays herself indecently’ – Letter to d’Alembert • ‘And no longer being able to tolerate the separation, unable to make themselves men, the women make us into women’

  15. David’s Oath of the Horatii(1784)What is going on here?

  16. French Revolution • Women’s revolutionary actions vs. gender hierarchy in republicanism • Women’s Bread March to Versailles (Oct 1789) • Active in clubs, sections • Petitions, patriotic gifts to the nation (jewelry, clothes)

  17. Declaration of the Rights of Women- 1791 • Olympe de Gouges • Playwright, political commentator, feminist • ‘woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she has the right to mount the rostrum’ • Separate National Assembly of and for women • Equality in • property rights • public administration • work place • Taxes, education

  18. Revolutionary advances… • Marriage and divorce: civil, not religious, procedure • Women can initiate divorce • All children inherit (rather than just sons) • Abolition of the guilds: work possibilities opened up • Society of Revolutionary Republican Women (1793) • Radical agendas too much for Republican officials, Catholic women, many bourgeois women • De-democratization after the terror thwarted feminist agenda

  19. Directory/Napoleonic backlash • 1795: Women banned from galleries in National Convention • 1796: Women banned from senior teaching positions • 1804: Civil Code • Unequal standards of divorce restored • Women can’t defend themselves in court • Cannot own property without husband’s consent

  20. Early 19th century • Catholicism and Republicanism, otherwise at odds, agree on the subordination of women

  21. Cult of Domesticity – 19th century

  22. Resurgence, 1848 • Committee on the Rights of Women • ‘You say “There are no more proletarians”’, but if women are excluded, ‘there remains more than 17 million of them!’ • ‘When they abolish all privileges, they will not think of conserving the worst one of all and leaving one half of the nation under the domination of the other half.’ • - Jeanne Deroin to the National Assembly, 1848

  23. La Question des femmes (1850-60s)The Question of Women • ‘Knowledge’ marshaled to justify gender inequality • Jules Michelet • republican, celebrated popular democracy and the French Revolution • Love (1859) • Women (1860) • Women’s reproductive biology rendered them unfit for public life. Women’s minds and bodies should be ‘fertilized’ by her husband’s superior attributes, physical and mental

  24. Question des femmes, 1850-60s • Auguste Comte (Positivism) and • Charles Darwin (evolution) • Natural basis for inequality • The sexes have become more distinct over time • Mastery over nature has softened life • As women are increasingly protected by men, they lose their wits to compete and fight • Men’s rivalry with other men – over women and over wealth and resources – ensured their superiority in the future

  25. Sociological studies of women workers • 1860s • Highlighted the horrendous conditions of women workers • Conclusion: they should be at home caring for husbands and children

  26. Question des femmesPro-women views by men • Victor Hugo • At the funeral of an 1848 woman activist • ‘The 18th century proclaimed the right of man, the 19th century will proclaim the right of woman.’ • Les Misérables: described the sexism, harassment and oppression that drove a single working mother into prostitution, disease and death (Fantine)

  27. Question des femmes • John Stuart Mill • On Liberty (1859) • On the Subjection of Women (1869) • Women’s nature can’t be ‘defined’ until all legal and cultural constraints on her development are lifted

  28. The Communardes, 1871 Organized ambulance and nursing services Day-care facilities Secular primary schools Producer cooperatives for women Challenged clerical control of education, marriage laws, poorly paid workshop conditions Mounted barricades, carried arms, fought

  29. Attacked on left and right • Socialist communards (men) rejected the movement • The government, which brutally suppressed the Commune, blamed the downfall of civilization on women’s emancipation movements and failure to serve as good spouses.

  30. 1870s – 1890s: Internationalization of Women’s Movement • 1889: French and International Congress on the Rights of Women (England, France, US) • Divisions over the work question • Rise of ‘conservative’ protection for women • Banned night work for women • Enforce unpaid maternity leaves • Responses: • A) Women’s right to choose how and when to work • B) State subsidies for mothers • C) Enforced male participation in domestic work

  31. Paradox of French Feminism • The Rights of Man and of the Citizen • What is man? • Who can be a citizen? • Feminism torn between • Universal individual (w/o particularities) • Particularity: womanhood • Equal, but equal to whom? (Irigaray)

  32. Difference vs. Sameness • Republicanism • Gender differences naturalized • Socialism • Introduces equality and ‘the social question’ • Paradigm: politics (male) vs. the social (female) • Therefore, feminists can ally with socialist men to improve society through politics • Difference mobilised towards equality

  33. Once equality is granted… • Contradictions and paradoxes become more acute • If women have political rights, are they supposed to behave like men (since ‘citizenship’ carries the freight of the masculine) • Can they bring their differences to politics – their different interests and concerns? • Feminism, like all movements against oppression, must battle to reconcile universal-sameness and particularities

  34. The Case of Women Writers • Few before the French Revolution • Oral = female // Writing = male • Reflected in literacy and publication rates • French Revolution • Freedom of expression • More and more women write from 1789 onward, even in the age of ‘domesticity’

  35. But… • Women do not achieve intellectual authority in the sphere of writing… • Philosophy, science – expelled • Retreat into Fiction • Female characters – unconcerned with absolutes • They navigate laws and constraints – contingent reasoning • Fiction: an apolitical sphere to produce the self • 20th century: from fiction to prose: achieving public intellectual authority

  36. New Woman (fin de siècle) • Playacting as means to act publicly • Using gender stereotypes while subverting them • La fronde (1897-1905) • Circulation: 50,000 • Proved women’s ability in the fields of law, psychiatry • Used male pseudonyms at times and some reporters even male disguises to get interviews • Sarah Bernhardt – actress, courtesan, cross-dresser, scandal-prone, but ‘acted’ normalcy for fans

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