I
FEMINISTS include as many different kinds of women in France as elsewhere. The term can be applied equally to a George Sand or a Marguérite Audoux. We find the movement as marked, too, in France as in other countries. But the interesting thing about it is that though similar to all the others in basic principles, the French feminist is instinctively individual, always French. Compare her, for instance, with her sister across the channel. In England she bends all her energies to winning the suffrage, to carrying reforms by act of Parliament; in France she takes no part in political campaigns, cares not at all for the vote. In England the ladies of the aristocracy are the prime movers; in France, with few exceptions, the women of the upper classes look on the movement with indifference, and the leaders come from a small group of intelligent and ambitious women of the bourgeoisie. In England women are working for the cause of all women rather than for individual advantage; in France they impress one as working for their own benefit, not for humanity. In England, throwing off their feminine garb, they often become blatant, clamorous, unwomanly; in France, believing that woman’s deadliest weapon is her womanliness, they never withdraw the battery of their feminine charms. In England the feminist is still a conformist to moral law; in France, unfortunately, she is too often a rebel against moral as well as social restrictions.
The tendency has existed in many brilliant women since French history began. We naturally think of the women of the salons, for instance. But they were only sporadic examples of cleverness. A general “woman movement” was not known till the French Revolution.
“Since when have women occupied themselves with politics?” asked Napoleon of Mme. de Staël.
“Since they have been guillotined,” was her reply.
But the Revolution brought them no recognition, for upon its heels came Napoleon, who took from them even that which they had. Two other movements also came to naught: followers of St. Simon, the Socialist, who believed in the complete emancipation of woman and in her entire equality with man, owed their failure to the extravagance of some of their doctrines, and to lack of organization. The other attempt was snuffed out in 1851 with the coup d’état of Napoleon III. Through the twenty years of political reaction succeeding that event, there were always women, often famous, who fought valiantly, if not always wisely, for emancipation; and since the establishment of the republic, their efforts have made uninterrupted headway.