Singularity, Solidarity, and Gender France 1945-1997
Abstract
This paper examines how French Philosopher Mona Ozouf’s theory of French Singularity
answers for the state of French feminism at the end of the 20th century. It also examines
the
historical and moral gaps in this theory and offers social solidarity as an alternative
lens through
which to understand the theory. Chapter One provides a historical explanation of Ozouf’s
response to American feminists’ critique of the French women’s movement. Ozouf attributes
the
French women’s movement’s relative quiescence after 1945 to the fact that French women
benefited from a legacy of female power that existed during the Ancien Régime as well
as
France’s legacy of social (sexual) mixing. After the French Revolution, Ozouf points
to
educational privileges (thanks to Rousseau) advanced in service of Republican motherhood
that
French women enjoyed, making French women’s experience of womanhood superior to that
of
women in the rest of Europe or the United States. Chapters Two and Three survey Claire
Duchen’s historical challenge to Ozouf’s singular representation of the women’s movement
in
postwar France. This includes longstanding campaigns for legislative removal of laws
limiting
women’s marital and reproductive rights that laid the groundwork for reforms in the
late 1960s
and 1970s. Chapter Two also examines internal conflicts between Lacanian Psychanalyse
et
Politique and the rest of the French second wave women’s movement. Chapter Four proposes
an
interpretation of French Singularity through Sally Scholz’s theoretical framework
of solidarity
and demonstrates how French Singularity, once detached from its problematic underpinnings
and
understood through the lens of social solidarity, stands as a useful historical explanation
of
French gender relations in the 1990s.
Type
Capstone projectDepartment
Graduate Liberal StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/25467Citation
Wharton, Elisabeth (2022). Singularity, Solidarity, and Gender France 1945-1997. Capstone project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/25467.Collections
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