Civilization without sexes : reconstructing gender in postwar France, 1917-1927 / Mary Louise Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roberts, Mary Louise.

Series:

Women in culture and society.

Women in culture and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex role--France--History--20th century.

Sex role.

Women--France--Social conditions.

Women.

World War, 1914-1918--Social aspects--France.

World War, 1914-1918.

World War, 1914-1918--Women--France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (337 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

In the raucous decade following World War I, newly blurred boundaries between male and female created fears among the French that theirs was becoming a civilization without sexes. This new gender confusion became a central metaphor for the War's impact on French culture and led to a marked increase in public debate concerning female identity and woman's proper role. Mary Louise Roberts examines how in these debates French society came to grips with the catastrophic horrors of the Great War. In sources as diverse as parliamentary records, newspaper articles, novels, medical texts, writings on sexology, and vocational literature, Roberts discovers a central question: how to come to terms with rapid economic, social, and cultural change and articulate a new order of social relationships. She examines the role of French trauma concerning the War in legislative efforts to ban propaganda for abortion and contraception, and explains anxieties about the decline of maternity by a crisis in gender relations that linked soldiery, virility, and paternity. Through these debates, Roberts locates the seeds of actual change. She shows how the willingness to entertain, or simply the need to condemn, nontraditional gender roles created an indecisiveness over female identity that ultimately subverted even the most conservative efforts to return to traditional gender roles and irrevocably altered the social organization of gender in postwar France.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction. "THIS CIVILIZATION NO LONGER HAS SEXES"

PART ONE. LA FEMME MODERNE

PART TWO. LA MERE

PART THREE. LA FEMME SEULE

Conclusion. 'ARE WE WITNESSING THE BIRTH OF A NEW CIVILIZATION?'

Notes

Index

Notes:

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Brown University), 1990.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-330) and index.

ISBN:

9786612070181

9781282070189

1282070185

9780226721279

0226721272

OCLC:

368265682