| Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-De-Siecle France Contributor(s): Roberts, Mary Louise (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226721248 ISBN-13: 9780226721248 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $94.05 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 2002 Annotation: In fin-de-siecle France, politics were in an uproar, and gender roles blurred as never before. Into this maelstrom stepped the "new women," a group of primarily urban, middle-class French women who became the objects of intense public scrutiny. Some remained single, some entered nontraditional marriages, and some took up the professions of medicine and law, journalism and teaching. All of them challenged traditional notions of womanhood by living unconventional lives and doing supposedly "masculine" work outside the home. Mary Louise Roberts examines a constellation of famous new women active in journalism and the theater, including Marguerite Durand, founder of the women's newspaper" La Fronde"; the journalists Severine and Gyp; and the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Roberts demonstrates how the tolerance for playacting in both these arenas allowed new women to stage acts that profoundly disrupted accepted gender roles. The existence of "La men--even" itself was such an act, because it demonstrated that women could write just as well about the same subjects as men-even about the volatile Dreyfus Affair. When female reporters for "La Fronde" put on disguises to get a scoop or wrote under a pseudonym, and when actresses played men on stage, they demonstrated that gender identities were not fixed or natural, but inherently unstable. Thanks to the adventures of new women like these, conventional domestic femininity was exposed as a choice, not a destiny. Lively, sophisticated, and persuasive, "Disruptive Acts" will be a major work not just for historians, but also for scholars of cultural studies, gender studies, and the theater. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Women's Studies - History | Europe - France - Social Science | Feminism & Feminist Theory |
| Dewey: 305.420 |
| LCCN: 2002004194 |
| Physical Information: 1.01" H x 6.56" W x 9.34" (1.42 lbs) 364 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - French - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In fin-de-si cle France, politics were in an uproar, and gender roles blurred as never before. Into this maelstrom stepped the new women, a group of primarily urban, middle-class French women who became the objects of intense public scrutiny. Some remained single, some entered nontraditional marriages, and some took up the professions of medicine and law, journalism and teaching. All of them challenged traditional notions of womanhood by living unconventional lives and doing supposedly masculine work outside the home. Mary Louise Roberts examines a constellation of famous new women active in journalism and the theater, including Marguerite Durand, founder of the women's newspaper La Fronde; the journalists S verine and Gyp; and the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Roberts demonstrates how the tolerance for playacting in both these arenas allowed new women to stage acts that profoundly disrupted accepted gender roles. The existence of La Fronde itself was such an act, because it demonstrated that women could write just as well about the same subjects as men--even about the volatile Dreyfus Affair. When female reporters for La Fronde put on disguises to get a scoop or wrote under a pseudonym, and when actresses played men on stage, they demonstrated that gender identities were not fixed or natural, but inherently unstable. Thanks to the adventures of new women like these, conventional domestic femininity was exposed as a choice, not a destiny. Lively, sophisticated, and persuasive, Disruptive Acts will be a major work not just for historians, but also for scholars of cultural studies, gender studies, and the theater. |
Contributor Bio(s): Roberts, Mary Louise: - Mary Louise Roberts is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and the author of What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin de Siècle France and Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1928. |