Abstract
As some critics would have it, post-war women intellectuals remain rarities, existing in small numbers and whose work, by and large, is incompatible with canonical studies of the intellectual. In the light of such affirmations, this chapter therefore asks what it means to be an intellectual au féminin, in the process revealing the gendered nature of the phenomenon and goes on to elucidate the experiences of the women in this book, contextualising their work in relation to developments in feminism and wider political events before situating their work in relation to that of the more high-profile figures of Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. Sartrean and Foucauldian visions of the intellectual and their relationship to power, together with Bourdieusian analyses of cultural capital, will be considered in order to throw light on the evolution of the post-war intellectual in France and the implications of this for women. Gisèle Halimi, Françoise Giroud and Benoîte Groult and the other women to feature in this work are often thought of separately as writers, campaigners or activists but here it will be argued that they are more than this. The purpose here then is not merely to recount their interventions or simply to map their contributions in specific cases. Nor is the sole task to analyse their particular views on feminism, although this is of course inextricably linked to their actions; of greater concern is to analyse the phenomenon of the intellectual in relation to this particular group of women.
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Notes
Zygmunt Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals (Cambridge: Polity, 1987), p. 23.
In intellectual history, the concept of ‘gender’, as a tool is not unequivocal. It has allowed us to reflect on the historical construction of masculine and feminine gender roles and to recover women intellectuals as the ‘Second Sex’ from anonymity and occultation in the intellectual field, with the conviction that relationships between men and women intellectuals will form the basis of a future study of intellectuals. Nicole Racine in L’Histoire des intellectuels aujourd’hui ed. by Michel Leymarie and Jean-François Sirinelli (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), 2003, pp. 341–363 (p. 362).
Susan P. Conrad, Perish the Thought: Intellectual Women in Romantic America 1830–60 (Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press), 1987, p. 7 quoted in
Elaine Showalter, ‘Laughing Medusa: Feminist Intellectuals at the Millennium’, Women: A Cultural Review, 11 (2000), 131–138 (p. 132).
Racine and Trebitsch wonder why this may be so: ‘L’activité intellectuelle de Beauvoir, trop souvent réduite à sa théorisation du féminisme, ne mériterait-elle pas d’être étudiée en elle-même, tout comme ses engagements politiques spécifiques?’ ‘Doesn’t Beauvoir’s intellectual activity, too often reduced to her theorisation of feminism, deserve to be studied in its own right, just as her specific political commitments?’ Nicole Racine and Michel Trebitsch (eds), Intellectuelles: du genre en histoire des intellectuelles (Brussels: Complexe, 2004), p. 25.
Pascal Balmand, ‘Anti-intellectualism in French Political Culture’ in Intellectuals in Twentieth Century France: Samurais and Mandarins ed. by Jeremy Jennings (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 157–176 (p. 170).
Christophe Prochasson, ‘L’Image sans le son: le petit théâtre des intellectuels français au XXe siècle’, Modern and Contemporary France, 9 (2001), 55–69 (p. 57).
Sudhir Hazareesingh, ‘The Political Role of Intellectuals’ in Political Traditions in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 33–64 (p. 36).
Régis Debray, Le scribe: genèse du politique (Paris: Grasset, 1980).
Margaret Atack, May 68: French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 73.
Michel Foucault, ‘La Fonction politique de l’intellectuel’, Politique Hebdo, 29 November–5 December 1976, pp. 31–36, reprinted in Daniel Defert and François Ewald (eds), Michel Foucault Dits et écrits 1954–1988, Vol III (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), p. 109.
David Macey records that ‘Foucault often claimed that he did not “like to get involved in polemics.”’ The Lives of Michel Foucault (London: Hutchinson, 1993), p. 433.
Marie-Christine Kok-Escalle, ‘Féminisme et sémiotique: les intellectuelles en France, un engagement spécifique?’, Modern and Contemporary France, 1 (1994), p. 58.
Niilo Kauppi, French Intellectual Nobility: Institutional and Symbolic Transformation in the Post-Sartrian Era (New York: SUNY Press, 1996), p. 29.
Jeremy Lane, Pierre Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction (London: Pluto, 2000), p. 200.
Jeremy Ahearne, Between Cultural Theory and Policy (Coventry: Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, 2004), p. 10.
Bernard Brillant, Les clercs de 68 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2003).
See Nick Hewlett, ‘The Historical Significance of May 1968’ in Modern French Politics: Analysing Conflict and Consensus since 1945 (Oxford: Polity, 1998), pp. 146–169.
See Michèle Sarde, Regard sur les Françaises Xe-XXe siècle (Paris: Stock, 1985), p. 517.
See Jean Rabaut, Histoire des féminismes français (Paris: Stock, 1978), p. 333.
See Claire Duchen, Feminism in France from May ’68 to Mitterrand (London and New York: Routledge, 1986), p. 5.
Françoise Parturier, Lettre ouverte aux hommes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1968), p. 146. For more on this see Imogen Long, ‘Writing Gaullist Feminism: Françoise Parturier’s Open Letters 1968–1974’, Modern and Contemporary France, 19.3 (2011), 315–329.
Leslie Hill, Marguerite Duras: Apocalyptic Desires (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 89.
Judith Butler, ‘The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva’, Hypatia, 3.3 (1989), 104–118 (p. 104).
Julia Kristeva, ‘Women’s Time’, Trans. by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake, Signs, 7.1 (1981), 13–35 (p. 19).
See Hélène Cixous, Le rire de la méduse: et autres ironies (Paris: Galilée, 2010 [1975]).
‘Psych et po demonstrated in fact how feminism was on the whole reformist, assimilationist and above all doomed to accepted men’s terms. On their own initiative, the group appropriated the name MLF, going so far as to start legal proceedings against other feminist groups who tried to use it.’ Michelle Perrot and Georges Duby, Histoires des femmes en Occident V (Paris: Plon, 1992), p. 674.
Christiane Rochefort, Les petits enfants du siècle (Paris: Grasset, 1988 [1961]).
Simone de Beauvoir, Les belles images (Paris: Gallimard, 1966).
Benoîte and Flora Groult, Le féminin pluriel (Paris: Denoël, 1965).
Monique Wittig, Les guérillères (Paris: Minuit, 1969).
Toril Moi, Sexual Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London and New York: Methuen, 1985), p. 103. However, Cixous has entered into militant action on other issues as can be seen from her involvement in the GIP for example. See Macey, The Lives of Michel Foucault, p. 265.
See Christine Delphy, ‘The Invention of French Feminism: An Essential Move’, Yale French Studies, 87 (1995), 190–221 (p. 193).
Judith Still, ‘Continuing Debates about French Feminist Theory’, French Studies, 61.3 (2007), 314–328 (p. 322).
For the full list see Jean-François Sirinelli’s Intellectuels et passions françaises: manifestes et pétitions au XXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 290–292.
For a full account see Gisèle Halimi, Avortement: Une loi en procès — L’Affaire de Bobigny (Paris: Gallimard, 1973) and also Gisèle Halimi, La cause des femmes, (Paris: Grasset, 1973).
For more on Roudy’s Ministry see Joni Lovenduski, ‘Sex Equality and the Rules of the Game’ in Sex Equality Policy in Western Europe ed. by Frances Gardiner (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 87–104 (p. 100).
Siân Reynolds, ‘Whatever Happened to the Ministry for Women’s Rights?’, Modern and Contemporary France, 33 (1988), 4–9 (p. 4).
‘Il fallut beaucoup de courage et de convictions aux féministes telles Benoîte Groult et quelques autres, ainsi qu’aux tribunaux, pour continuer à lutter contre l’intolérable tolérance’ ‘It took a lot of courage and conviction for feminists such as Benoîte Groult and a few others, as well as for judges, to continue fighting against the intolerable tolerance.’ Elisabeth Badinter, Fausse Route (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2003), p. 164.
Janet Todd, Feminist Literary History: A Defence (Cambridge: Polity, 1988), p. 3.
See Edward Saïd’s Representations of the Intellectual (London: Vintage, 1994), p. 6.
Michael Kelly, ‘Comparing French and British Intellectuals: Towards a Cross-Channel Perspective’, French Cultural Studies, 14.3 (2003), 336–348 (p. 345).
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Long, I. (2013). Women Intellectuals. In: Women Intellectuals in Post-68 France. French Politics, Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318770_2
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