Debating the Woman Question in the French Third Republic, 1870-1920

Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-1-316-63840-8
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 710 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 1013 g

Reihe: New Studies in European History

Karen Offen offers a magisterial reconstruction and analysis of the debates around relations between women and men, how they are constructed, and how they should be organized, that raged in France and its French-speaking neighbors from 1870 to 1920. The 'woman question' encompassed subjects from maternity and childbirth, and the upbringing and education of girls to marriage practices and property law, the organization of households, the distribution of work inside and outside the household, intimate sexual relations, religious beliefs and moral concerns, government-sanctioned prostitution, economic and political citizenship, and the politics of population growth. The book shows how the expansion of economic opportunities for women and the drop in the birth rate further exacerbated the debates over their status, roles, and possibilities. With the onset of the First World War, these debates were temporarily placed on hold, but they would be revived by 1916 and gain momentum during France's post-war recovery.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Offen, Karen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

General introduction: 'what do women want?' and quotations; Part I. Familiarization: Romance with the Republic, 1870s–1889: 1. Relaunching the Republican campaign for women's rights: 2. Educators, medical and social scientists, and population experts debate the woman question, 1870–1889; 3: The politics of the family, women's work, and public morality, 1870–1890; 4. The revolutionary centennial: promoting women and women's rights at the 1889 International Exposition in Paris; Part II. Encounter: the Third Republic Faces Feminist Claims, 1890–1900: Quotations and introductory remarks; 5. The birth and 'take-off' of feminism in republican France; 6: Rights or protection for working women?; 7. Must maternity be women's form of patriotism? 8. The new century greets the woman question, 1900; Part III. Climax: Mainstreaming the Woman Question, 1901–1914: Quotations and introductory remarks; 9. Building a force to reckon with the Republic: The Conseil National des Femmes Françaises and its allies, 1900–1914; 10. Defining, historicizing, contesting, and defending feminism: early 20th century developments; 11. Refocusing the state: depopulation, maternity, and the quest for a woman-friendly state; 12. Emerging labor issues: equal pay for equal work, travail à domicile, and women's right to work; 13. 'The alpha and omega of our demands' – the women's suffrage campaigns heat up, 1906–1914; Part IV. Anti-Climax: the Great War and its Aftermath: Quotations and introductory remarks; 14. The Great War and the woman question; 15. 'Half the human race': epilogue and conclusion; Afterword; Appendix: important dates for the woman question debates; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Offen, Karen
Karen Offen received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, California and is a historian and independent scholar affiliated as a Senior Scholar with the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University.