Vichy and the eternal feminine : a contribution to a political sociology of gender
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Vichy and the eternal feminine : a contribution to a political sociology of gender
Duke University Press, c2001
- : cloth
- : pbk
- Other Title
-
Vichy et l'éternel féminin
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Note
Orginally published as: Vichy et l'éternel féminin. Éditions du Seuil, c1996
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this nuanced history of occupied France, Francine Muel-Dreyfus presents a powerful examination of the political and social construction of gender under the Vichy regime. Arguing that the regime used symbolic violence to reshape a liberal culture once based on individual rights into one of deference to hierarchical authority, Muel-Dreyfus shows how Vichy invoked theories of "natural" gender inequality and "eternal" opposition between the masculine and the feminine to justify women's legal and social subordination, and how these ideologies were incorporated into the French woman's sense of self.
Drawing on an extensive body of legislative, religious, educational, medical, and literary texts, Muel-Dreyfus examines how the Vichy regime brutally resurrected the gender politics that had been rejected during France's social struggles in the 1930s. Strikingly, she reveals how this resurrection in turn fed into racial politics: childless women, for instance, and those who had abortions were construed-like Jews-as threats to France's racial "purity." With its atendant patterns of social inclusion and exclusion that were deeply rooted in the political and cultural history of the Third Republic, Muel-Dreyfus claims, a pervasive range of gendered metaphors helped to structure the very laws and policies of the Vichy regime.
The French language edition of this book was published in 1996 to wide acclaim. Contributing to theories about the role of gender in political philosophy, to the cultural anthropology of symbolic representation, and to our understanding of the history of fascism, Vichy and the Eternal Feminine will appeal to French, European, and twentieth-century historians; students and scholars of gender and racial studies; political scientists; and anthropologists.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: The Hypnotic Power of Punishment
1. Writers of the Defeat in Search of Eternity
2. The Church and Feminine Contrition
3. The Demographic Sin
Part 2: The Culture of Sacrifice
4. Violence and State Propaganda
5. Heritage and Incarnations of Catholic Feminine Culture
6. Family Imperialism and Feminine Subjection
Part 3: Biological Order and Social Order
7. "Natural" Hierarchies: Sexual Predestination and Social Predestination
8. Control of Bodies
Conclusion
Notes
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"