5 - Reforming the Feminine: Early Feminist Journals

Summary

THIS FINAL CHAPTER analyses the most politically radical figurations of womanhood in the early French women's press, figurations that explicitly advocate women's active participation in the public domain as a means of achieving both personal fulfilment and professional recognition. In the four journals to be looked at here – journals that span a significant portion of the 90-year period in question – woman is above all characterised as an independent, intelligent and fundamentally politicised individual who, rather than be encouraged to remain within the domestic realm, is shown to flourish through interaction and solidarity with (principally female) others in the world of work and politics. While earlier publications may be seen to marry the Horatian binaries of plaire and instruire with differing degrees of emphasis, the feminist journals examined here are resolutely focused on instruction through social engagement and participation in the extra-domestic world of employment. In these publications, the feminine is figured as a well-rounded, confident individual whose self-worth is dependent on actively using her ‘inner’ qualities and strengths to bring about social change for women rather than being ‘passively’ valorised for her outer appearance; indeed, the notion of the journal as a form of lighthearted divertissement is conspicuously absent. If part of the appeal of today's women's press still resides in its representation of an idyllic domestic haven sealed off from the vicissitudes of the outside world, the content of the journals examined in this chapter urges readers to participate fully and equally in the public domain and to continually seek to improve women's rights. The overwhelming focus on the more pedagogically and pragmatically oriented instruction does not, however, mean that the moralistic emphasis on éducation is completely absent. Particularly in the final journal to be looked at in this study, La Voix des femmes, the generic figuration of woman as moral and maternal stalwart – a figuration that has subtended the entire early period of the women's press – plays a predominant role.

The journals studied in this chapter are thus characterised by an overt feminist agenda, whether in the form of drawing up government petitions and setting up workshops for women workers or in organising public demonstrations in order to raise awareness about specific issues related to women's rights.