Fauré Christine - Political and Historical Encyclopedia of Women

Translated by

Richard Dubois

Marjolin de Jaeger

Amy Jacobs

Marijke Rijsberman

Merle Shore

Jennifer Terni

Gwen Wells

With invaluable editorial assistance from Elizabeth Nishiura.

Translation Editor

Gwen Wells

Christine Faur
EDITOR

Routledge
An Imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group

New York and London

Published in 2003 by
Routledge
An Imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
An Imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE

Copyright 2003 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.

Originally published as Encyclopdie Politique et Historique des Femmes, edited by Christine Faur
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), ISBN 2 13 048316 X (Print Edition).
Presses Universitaires de France, 1997 & 1998

Published with the participation of the Ministre franais charge de la CultureCentre National du Livre (French Ministry of CultureNational Book Center).

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Encyclopdie politique et historique des femmes. English.

Political and historical encyclopedia of women/edited by Christine Faur; translated by Richard Dubois [et al.].

p. cm.

Originally published: Encyclopdie politique et historique des femmes.
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997.

ISBN 0-203-50593-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-59310-3 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 1-57958-237-0 (Print Edition)

1. Women in politicsEurope. 2. Women in politicsNorth America. 3. Women legislatorsEurope. 4. Women legislatorsNorth America. 5. Women's rightsEuropeHistory. 6. Women's rightsNorth AmericaHistory. I. Faur, Christine, II. Title.

HQ1236.5.E85E52 2003

320. 082dc21

2003004538

dedicated to the memory of Maximilien Rubel

Christine Faur

Sarah Hanley

Clandia Opitz

Hubert Carrier

Gordon Schochet

Ann Hughes

Linda K. Kerber

Jacques Guilhaumou and Martine Lapied

Catherine Larrre

Christine Faur

Janet L. Polasky

Rudolf M. Dekker and Judith A. Vega

Harris Memel-Fot

Eleni Varikas

Mat Bouyssy

Simone Debout-Oleszkiewicz

Mat Bouyssy and Christine Faur

Bonnie S. Anderson

Maximilien Rubel

Jacques Rougerie

Barbara Alpern-Engel

Claudie Weill

Jean-Jacques Marie

Franoise Basch

Yolande Cohen

Florence Rochefort

Odile Rudelle

Mary Nash

Rita R. Thalmann

Cecilia Dau-Novelli

Franois Rouquet

Anne Cova and Antonio Costa Pinto

Svetlana Aivazova

Dominique Fougeyrollas-Schwebel

Brigitte Studer

Danile Djamila Amrane-Minne

Riva Kastoryano

Elisabeth Elgn

Christine Pintat, Inter-Parliamentary Union

Giovanna Procacci and Mariagrazia Rossilli

A number of individuals and institutions made essential contributions to this volume. For the preparation of the French edition, Christine Faur wishes to thank the Service des Catalogues de la Salle des Imprims at the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris, in particular Marie-Louise Aubert, librarian, Albert Obrier, conservator, Jean-Louis Pailhs, head conservator, and Raymond-Josu Seckel, general conservator. She is also grateful to Florence Assouline, a journalist and specialist in women's issues in the Arab world, Liliane Kandel, a researcher at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (Centre d'Enseignement, de Documentation et de Recherche pour les tudes Fministes, or CEDREF, at the Universit Paris VII-Denis Diderot), and Danile Voldman, director of research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (Institut d'Histoire du Temps Present). Additionally, she is indebted to Jochen Becker, professor of art history at the University of Utrecht, Rmi Gossez, historian, Pierre Laurens, professor of Latin literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance at the Sorbonne, Thomas Lennon, professor of philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, Eluggero Pii, professor of political doctrine at the University of Florence, Georges Saro, assistant professor of Italian at the Universit Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, and Patrick Thierry, professor of philosophy at the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Matres in Versailles.

The editors of the English-language edition, in turn, gratefully acknowledge the generosity and significant contributions of time, energy, and vital information from Christine Faur, Gilbert Klajnman, and individual authors. Their help has been indispensable.

The idea of the international work on women in politics and history has become urgent and necessary in the wake of the current redefinition of the concepts of event and action. Indeed, such a redefinition seems to be inseparable from an attempt to locate, describe, and appreciate women's part in the overall movement of transformation that has marked our Western society.

What, then, should we consider as an event? Is there any correspondence between the great events whose inaugural significance is generally recognized, and a documented mobilization of women? Can it be justly said that the subjective and expressive dimension of the actions undertaken by women, outside the sphere of institutional power, helps to enrich our understanding of events? It is such questions that the authors of the articles in this volume have endeavored to resolve, bringing to bear their convictions and experience as well as their scholarship.

The encyclopedic genre comes to the fore at moments of discovery, when the novelty of a situation, its effects undeniable in all spheres, necessitates a reassessment. Hence the idea of a sequence of human knowledge, of genealogy and descent set forth in the Encyclopdie of Diderot and d'Alembert, which took up the concept of origin established at the start of the 16th century by way of the Greek word encyclios, meaning circle: the poet Joachim du Bellay referred to the encyclopedia as a round of learning.

On this occasion, however, the novelty does not concern technical or economic knowledge, but rather the political condition of women. The control of female fertility, implemented from the 1960s throughout the industrialized world, revolutionized women's position in society, helping to extend the idea of individual responsibility to all realms of life. The political effects of this change remain incalculable. They find expression in enthusiastic assent, but also in repudiations. The latter can sometimes be marked by a violence that runs counter to the general permissiveness of our way of life, since the transformation of the political role of women is not simply a consequence of one more private moral code, but involves the global future of our society, prompting constant readjustments of our democratic practices. The transformation of women's role thus concerns the whole political class of the industrialized nations and extends well beyond the scope of the interests expressed by the scientific community. As a sign of its importance and contemporary relevance, this issue now inspires conferences on a global scale and with an ever-growing audience.