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Imagined Sisterhood: Citizenship and the Feminist Press in Postwar France.
Unformatted Document Text:  “Imagined Sisterhood”: Citizenship and the Feminist Press in Postwar France by Sandra Reineke Indiana University, Bloomington (Prepared for Delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28-31, 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.) On 26 August 1970, nine women trespassed the tomb of the Unknown Soldier underneath the Arc de Triumph in Paris. There, they laid a wreath to the wife of the Unknown Soldier, which was decorated with bands reading “One man out of two is a woman” and “There is one about whom even less is known than the Unknown Soldier: his wife.” The women were immediately arrested by the French police, but the symbolism of their protest action was not lost to the media. The next day, the newspapers called attention to the violation of a major symbol of French nationalism, calling the women involved le Mouvement de libération des femmes (M.L.F.) or women’s liberation movement. This protest action was the first open feminist intervention in the political discourses on gender and reproductive rights in postwar France (Batiot 1986: 92, 93, 90). 1 Crucially, like the suffragettes and other women activists before them, the postwar women’s liberation movement, which actually consisted of a large number of local women’s groups, used the print media (mainstream news magazines as well as their own publications) as a forceful tool in this political contestation. 2 1 The following studies of the M.L.F. are particularly informative: Anne Tristan and Annie Pisan. 1977. Histoires du MLF. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, Danièle Leger. 1982. Le Féminisme en France. Paris: Le Sycomore, Claire Duchen. 1986. Feminism in France from May ‘68 to Mitterand. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Monique Remy. 1990. De L’utopie à l’intégration. Histoire des mouvements de femmes. Paris: Editions L’Hartmattan, Christine Delphy. 1991. “Les origines du mouvement de libération des femmes en France,” Nouvelles questions féministes, Nos. 16-17-18; Françoise Picq. 1993. Libération des femmes: les années-mouvement. Paris: Seuil, Jane Jenson and Mariette Sineau. 1995. Mitterand et les françaises. Un rendez-vous manqué. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. 2 For an accont of the suffrage movement see Karen Offen. 1994. “Women, Citizenship and Suffrage with a French Twist, 1789-1993,” in Caroline Daley, and Melanie Nolan, eds. Suffrage and Beyond. International Feminist Perspectives. Auckland: Auckland University Press; and Carol Pateman. 1994. “Three Questions about Womanhood Suffrage,” in ibid.

Authors: Reineke, Sandra.
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“Imagined Sisterhood”:
Citizenship and the Feminist Press in Postwar France
by
Sandra Reineke
Indiana University, Bloomington
(Prepared for Delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the
American Political Science Association, August 28-31, 2003.
Copyright by the American Political Science Association.)
On 26 August 1970, nine women trespassed the tomb of the Unknown Soldier
underneath the Arc de Triumph in Paris. There, they laid a wreath to the wife of the
Unknown Soldier, which was decorated with bands reading “One man out of two is a
woman” and “There is one about whom even less is known than the Unknown Soldier:
his wife.” The women were immediately arrested by the French police, but the
symbolism of their protest action was not lost to the media. The next day, the newspapers
called attention to the violation of a major symbol of French nationalism, calling the
women involved le Mouvement de libération des femmes (M.L.F.) or women’s liberation
movement. This protest action was the first open feminist intervention in the political
discourses on gender and reproductive rights in postwar France (Batiot 1986: 92, 93,
90).
1
Crucially, like the suffragettes and other women activists before them, the postwar
women’s liberation movement, which actually consisted of a large number of local
women’s groups, used the print media (mainstream news magazines as well as their own
publications) as a forceful tool in this political contestation.
2
1
The following studies of the M.L.F. are particularly informative: Anne Tristan and Annie Pisan. 1977.
Histoires du MLF. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, Danièle Leger. 1982. Le Féminisme en France. Paris: Le
Sycomore, Claire Duchen. 1986. Feminism in France from May ‘68 to Mitterand. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, Monique Remy. 1990. De L’utopie à l’intégration. Histoire des mouvements de femmes. Paris:
Editions L’Hartmattan, Christine Delphy. 1991. “Les origines du mouvement de libération des femmes en
France,” Nouvelles questions féministes, Nos. 16-17-18; Françoise Picq. 1993. Libération des femmes: les
années-mouvement. Paris: Seuil, Jane Jenson and Mariette Sineau. 1995. Mitterand et les françaises. Un
rendez-vous manqué. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.
2
For an accont of the suffrage movement see Karen Offen. 1994. “Women, Citizenship and Suffrage with a
French Twist, 1789-1993,” in Caroline Daley, and Melanie Nolan, eds. Suffrage and Beyond. International
Feminist Perspectives. Auckland: Auckland University Press; and Carol Pateman. 1994. “Three Questions
about Womanhood Suffrage,” in ibid.


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