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Women's projects and co-operatives in France at the beginning of the 19th century
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WOMEN’S PROJECTS AND CO-OPERATIVES IN FRANCE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Kampstrasse
HELGA
GRL'BITZSCH
17. D-2856
Bramstedt.
West German)
Synopsis-Seamstresses. washerwomen and midwives establish co-operatives in order to organise their own work. independent of employers. and to divide their profit amongst themselves and to assure a reserve for harder times. for periods of sickness. for their old age. Women’s collectives publish feminist magazines. including a daily newspaper by and for women: they found co-operative schools or an oreanisarion for the support of single mothers. Women live in communes. make plans for women’s houses and women’s meeting-centres. And all this took place in the France of
1830-1818. In my paper.
I would like to present some of the self-organised women’s projects and cooperatives of that time and thereby also uncover information and sources which have remained buried under prevailing historioeraphy. Moreover. my further intention is to refute the commonlyheld prejudice which dismisses the ‘proletarian’ or ‘socialist’ Women’s Movement of the 19th centur) far too easily as having been ‘male-dominated’. a verdict frequently passed in Women’s Studies in German!. In \.ieu of this. it seems to me important to highlight historicallv the autonomous projects of proletarian and socialisr wsomen and to pay appropriate tribute to their;ignificance for the history of the Women’s Movement (not only in France!). Finally. I would like to approach a methodical prohlem which confronts me again and a_eain in my work: the contradiction between historical distance and personal proximity and identification with the historical theme. By this. I mean the toilsome process of approaching histor! as something which is extraneous and yet related to us: this problem of. on the one hand not wiping out our present-da! knowledge. feelings. values and norms from our research. and on the orher hand. nor using these as a dtstorted pau_eefrom the women of former flmrs
Right up to the present da). the ‘proletarian Women’s Movement’ is equated. following Clara Zetkins definition. with the ‘organised classconscious Women’s Movement’ and consequentI\ with the involvement of women in worker;’ organisations such as trade unions and political parties. According to this. the term ‘socialist Women’s Movement’ is limited to the activities of women in socialist parties. and in German) this means mainly the S.P.D. And so the contradlction between the ‘autonomous‘ and ‘socialist’ Women’s Movement can be generalised. a contradiction which could develop historicall\ only with the appearance of the so-called ‘scientific socialism’ and of the Marxist theory of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The history of the proletarian and socialist Women’s Movement is confronted then with the verdict that it has subjected itself to class interest and to the domination of male theorists and party-leaders. This criticism. certainly applicable in the case of women organised in the S.P.D. (Social Democratic Party) or K.P.D. (Communist Party) in Germanv. cannot be made of the ‘proletarian Women’s
Movement’
as a whole.
an autonomous
socialist
There
exists
Women’s
the tradition
Movement
of
which
has its
roots in the 19th century and is very much alive today in other European countries and in the U.S.A. In France at the beginning of the 19th centur!. women workers fought conscious of their identity as women arrd as proletarians for their rights and for better living conditions and tried to change their workingand living structures. For them. feminism and/or socialism was not a ‘dilemma’ (Janssen-Jurreit. 1976). nor was autonomy and organisation a contradiction. midwives Seamstresses. washerwomen and founded co-operatives. to organise their work independently of employers and to divide their profit amongst themselves and to create reserves for times of distress. sickness and for their old age. Women’s collectives published feminist magazines. including a newspaper by and for women. and founded co-operative schools or an organisation for the support of single mothers. Women workers lived in communes and made plans for Women’s shelters and Communication I would 279
Centres.
like to present
here some of these projects
280
HELGA
GRUBITZSCH
and thereby highlight a particular aspect of the proletarian and socialist Women’s Movement. an aspect which up to now has received little attention in Germany because of the peculiarities of the history of the Women’s Movement in that country. I hope this may also contribute to doing away with the prejudiced mistrust of the socialist Women’s Movement and its history, a distrust often encountered in German feminist circles. ‘Freedom for women. Freedom for the Peoplethrough a new organisation of housework and industry’-this was the motto which a collective of French women adopted for their women’s magazine in 1832. La Femme Libre (The Free Woman) was produced by women for women. The founders were Desiree V&et (married name Gay), a milliner. Suzanne Monnier (married name Voilquin), an embroiderer and Jeanne-Victoire Jacob; the publication team was later joined by Marie-Reine Guindorf (married name Flichy). They all belonged originally to the Saint-Simonist group, a socialist group which enjoyed great popularity among working men and women after the February Revolution in France. The Saint-Simonists considered the emancipation of women as a necessary pre-condition to a change in society, and after lengthy and fiery conflicts within the group-which I cannot discuss herethey came to the conclusion that the women should not be integrated into the existing hierarchy of the group as this hierarchy reflected male norms. The women should rather stand up for themselves and seek for themselves the right way to freedom. The founding of the magazine La Femme tibre-later called Tribune des Femmes (Women’s Tribune)was the first independent public step of the proletarian St-Simonist women. Of the women on the editorial staff only Suzanne Voilquin remained loyal to Saint-Simonism, Marie-Reine turned quite quickly to Fourierism. about whose theories Desiree V&et became more and more enthusiastic. Fourier also worked for the freedom of women and declared this freedom as a yard-stick for social freedom. Further common ground with the SaintSimonists was the basic concept that every person according to interest and ability. should be able to find an appropriate and equally recognised place in society. The precondition to the realising of this Utopia was the abolishing of all privileges and inequalities and also of heritage (but not of private property!). Both the Saint-Simonists and Fourier agreed-in spite of differences in detail-that the way to this new society was through the Association, what is, in its broadest sense. through the free union of individuals for the purpose of communal living and/or working. For the early socialists, this term was by no means limited only to production: the Saint-Simonists used the term Association also for the relationship
between man and woman, a relationship which they sought to build on a concept of equal. partnership. Fourier’s ‘Phalansteres’ were also Associations: in these living and production communes, production was based on a union of work, talent and capital. and reproductive tasks such as housework, child-rearing. caring for the ill and the old were communally organised. ‘Association’ was the keyword of the workers’ movement of the 1840s-it signified both workers’ coalitions which meant beyond the legal framework of a corporation and also alternative forms of production under workers’ control. As a term in the struggle of the working class, and also that of the Women’s Movement, the word Association denoted primarily a coalition which broke through traditional barriers in practising new forms of communal living and working. The founder-members of La Femme Libre formed themselves into an Association and this very form of organisation of their work indicates their commitment to bringing about social changes. They formed an editorial collective where every article was discussed and a consensus reached. Many women signed their articles with their first name as a matter of principle, because they refused to write under the name of their fathers or their husbands. Controversies amongst editorial staff-for example, in moral questions-were documented. and minority opinions tolerated and published. as long as they did not question the aim of freedom for women. There were however very likely conflicts and strains about which we find no material: the fact that Suzanne Voilquin continued the paper alone from spring 1833 would seem to indicate this. However, by today’s standards. it is remarkable that different political opinions on the editorial staff worked together for the common goal of the emancipation of women and that the magazine extended way beyond its original Saint-Simonist framework. What bound these women together was not only their struggle for women’s emancipation but also their status as proletarians (as they called themselves). a status which allowed them to experience for themselves the ‘troubles of the people’. For them freedom for women was inseparable from freedom for the working class and this freedom could, in both cases, only be achieved through an extensive change in society, affecting both the private and public sphere (housework and industry). The Association was the political weapon with which the women were able to create new living and working conditions in their own time, and with which they could work towards a future change in society. The Femme Libre also presented actual Association projects, such as a women’s shelter, where women could be protected against the brutality of
Women’s Projects and Co-operatives
men and could live and work together. ARTISTE ET INDUSTRIELLE’ (Art and Handicrafts’ Association)
THE ‘ASSOCIATION
Angelique and Sophie-Caroline, two SaintSimonists, presented their concept of an Art and Handicrafts’ Association in 1832. Whether their plans ever became a reality, cannot be ascertained today. However, the ambitions of the women are a highly valuable reflection of the socialist/feminist thinking of that time. The immediate impulse for their project was given by the raping of a 16-year old worker, a case which sheds illuminating light on the situation of young women in the industrial cities of that time. Without the traditional back-up of the family, without legal protection and emotionally isolated, they were an all-to-easy prey for the brutality or seductive ‘games’ of men. ‘These incidents recur daily in our society. If one were to investigate and list out the complete range of immoral behaviour of men towards women, one would see that not a day. not one hour goes by, without some such crime of exploitation.’ (Angelique. Sophie-Caroline. 1832).’ These ‘fallen women’ were rejected by societythey were morally judged for something which in reality was a question of their material and emotional poverty on the one hand and of the brutality of men on the other hand. Even the and Sophie ‘privileged women’, as Angelique emphasised. closed their eyes to the poverty of young working-girls-the former were well-protected by their wealth and needed have little fear of such a ‘social downfall’. It would therefore be of immense advantage to the poor women and girls to join together in an Association where they could live and work together in emotional and material security. Angelique and Sophie-Caroline’s concrete proposal was for a ‘Saint-Simonist Art and Handicrafts’ Association’ for single girls and women. The older women (widowed or deserted by their husbands) would. by virtue of their experience, lead the younger girls; these would learn a handicraft which could be useful to the co-operative; finally the members should be ‘deeply convinced of the necessity for social contact, unity and love amongst all members of the community’. No-one would be paid for individual work and all takings would be paid into the collective income. With this communally-earned money. the basic necessities of life
’ All translations, Lanigan.
including the following. by Michael
in France
281
would be met: accommodation, food, heating. light and washing. For clothing and special requirements they should have a calculated 44.40 Francs per year. This was not very much. even though the average daily wage was a mere 1 Franc per day. It is noticeable also that there was provision in the house for a ‘sick ward’ but no money for medicines or doctors. In spite of this rather restricted framework, this project must have appeared a Utopia for many working women of the time: it provided all members with a reasonable income; occasional losses through individual unemployment or sickness could be covered; it provided accommodation with appropriate protection from persecution by men. and provided also an emotional entity which kept the women from isolation and loneliness. We may today have some reservations about the low level of individual freedom and/or the leadership role of the older women, but these doubts seem to me to be historically unjustifiable. Trust in the experience of elders waned only in the last century, in consequence of the total reliance on achievementcriteria as a measure of the value of a person. This process was just as much a result of industrialisation as was the increasing individualising of people. a process which, at the beginning of the 19th century, was noticeable in the lower social classes more as a loss of the security of traditional social structures than as a need for individual self-fulfilment and personal freedom.
L’ATHkNkE
DES FEMMES (THE WOMEIV’S ATHENAEUM):
At the beginning of 1834, Eugenic Niboyet. a former Saint-Simonist and publisher of the magazine Le Conseiller des Femmes (The Womens’ Adviser) founded in Lyon, along with other women whose names have not been handed down to us. the ‘AthtnCe des Femmes’, a school for further education for women and future women-teachers. The founders of the AthtnCe saw their work in the framework of a social movement which served the development of mankind. Their aim was the moral and intellectual cultivation of women of all classes. We still have today the statutes of this Association. Membership of the Societ! was confined to women who could be proposed by an existing member and who were accepted by the majority of women in the ‘Commission’ (see below). The membership fee was 20F per year. which wasn’t ver! much but which still restricted the circle of members
’ In French usage of that time. ‘AthtnCe‘ was a forum for public courses and lectures.
282
HELGA
GRUBITZSCH
to women with a fairly steady income. The money was necessary for basic equipment for the project. as all courses were to be free of charge-a library and reading-room were also in the plans. Each associate had the right to offer courses of her choice ‘as long as she described her methods and intentions’ (Para. 7). The syllabus was set by the Commission. Men were denied entry, except by express permission of the Commission. The Commission was the governing body of the school. It was composed of 9 women, who were elected by secret ballot of the plenary assembly: every three months 5 (or 4) different members were elected to the commission. This sort of rotation allowed the maximum participation by all in the leadership and organisation of the ‘Athenee and avoided overburdening any individual member. Every two weeks the associate women would meet to inform and be informed about the different work in progress. All meetings of the Athenee were open to all members and these were always informed in advance; moreover, minutes were made of everv meeting, so that there was no lack of ‘transparent!:’ in this project. nor of basis-oriented democracy (in spite of the pragmatic division of work in the Commission!). It is certain that the ‘AthtWe des Femme,’ began its work in 1833. How long the society existed. however. we cannot say. The Comeiller des Femmes. which became the magazine of the ‘Ath&+Ze’. ceased publishing in September 183-1: EugCnie Niboyet carried on the paper under the name Mosai’que L?,onaise. and this ma! be an indication of the collapse of the project. More likely. however. is that the ‘Athenee des Femmes’ ran into conflict with the coalitions laM (passed also in 1834) of the king Louis Philippe. The ban on associations and workers’ coalitions aimed at repressing the socialist and republican opposition to the July monarchy. The women’s movement was also affected. With this ‘irreligious law against the Associations’. Suzanne Voilquin could no longer see any way of carrying out useful political work in France. She closed down the Tribune des Femmes. However. the association idea remained alive amongst the workers and in the Women’s Movement and its theory was developed further.
FLORA TRISTAN’S ‘SOCIETY
FOR FOREIGN
WOMEN’
Flora Tristan published the Union OurWre at the beginning of the 1840s. up to then the most extensive concept for the international union of the proletariat. But she had also previously occupied herself with the concept of the Association: in 1835. she had published a brochure concerning the
‘necessity to receive foreign women properly’. Here she described the necessity of the Association ‘in order to build up a new society’, and in particular. to improve the lot of women. The women whose cause Flora took up in this treatise were the foreigners and other strangers to the place. Her idea to create a Centre for them was the result of her own experiences as she mentioned in her brochure. Up to 1835 she had ahead! struggled through for 10 years with her two children and tried to escape the persecution of her husband by travelling. The degradation and difficulties which she as a woman travelling ‘alone’ experienced (a situation which to a large extent even today has not changed). prompted her on her return from Peru to go about setting up a contact-and-communicationcentre for women foreign to the locality. She writes: ‘A thousand annoyances. a thousand times hospitality and politeness lacking’. the curiosity or indifference of fellow human beings. one’s own inexperience. and fear of foreign habits. all make travelling for a single woman a venture frought with hazards; on top of that the suggestive remarks, the sexual approaches and moral prejudices to which a single woman is exposed in a man’s world. Whether women travel for pleasure and education or on business. they will always find barriers in their way and traps laid out for them. Worst off are those women. however. who flee the condemnation and slander of the province. be it because they have become pregnant outside of marriage or ha\ae left their husbands. They are almost always penniless. because: ‘Rich women are very seldom forced to separate from their husbands. as they usual]>, live separate]! anyway. right from the beginning of their marriage.‘? In Paris. the poor women meet only with contempt and loneliness. ‘this populous town becomes for them a desert’. For these women especially. it is extreme]! important that the\- have some place in this huge city where they feel safe and find support. However. Flora emphasised very clearly in her brochure that help could be offered only to those who were prepared to live a ‘decent life‘. The moral code of this society is strict. ‘Virtue’ being its maxim of prime importance. Flora’s motive for this strictness was not a selfrighteous segregation from prostitution. Quite the contrary! She was one of the very few who sau clearly that ‘the reason for this evil was practical]! alwavs more likely to be found in society than in the indi\:idual’. She was however concerned to protect the Association from developing a bad reputation
’ All quotations from Flora Tristan. 1835 (translated b! M. Lanigan)
Women‘s
Projects
and Co-operatives
prevent the realisation of her aims. Finally. the Centre was to be open to all travelling and single women of all social classes, it should help them in all their affairs, with information and contacts. and should help to find work and hotels. To this end, the Association had to conform to the moral standards of the 19th century, and ensure an absolutely honourable reputation. in order to protect the women who stayed in the Centre and to develop good contacts. The ‘Society for Foreign Women’ devoted itself to women. but was not a women’s project. The statutes which Flora developed. envisaged equal participation by men and women. The financing of the Association. however. had not been worked out: as a philanthropic work. it would probably have received donations. Whether this plan ever became a reality. we cannot say. but it is likely that such a Centre for Travelling Women awaits its realisation even today. which would otherwise
THE SECOND REPC’BLXC The February Revolution of 1848, which brought about the 2nd Republic in France. gave both the Workers’ Movement and the Women’s Movement fresh impetus. The most acute problem for the proletarian women and likewise the workers was the organisation of their work. The socialists saw their hope in the form of the Association, as a means of creating work for all without exploitation. The government was called upon to open up national workshops to alleviate the plight of the people. On March 2nd 1848. Disiree Gay appealed to the Minister for Labour to open up national workshops for women. as well as national restaurants and laundries which would be run by Women’s Associations. However. the ‘Ateliers nationaux‘ which were finally set up by the Republic had very little in common with the socialist concept of Associations as self-governing co-operatives. They were structured on a hierarchical basis. were under state control and showed no consideration in the organisation of the work for the needs of those involved. Women’s workshops were only set up after much pressure and revolt by women. Desiree Gay bluntly criticised the conditions in the women’s workshops (which to a great extent owed their existence to her efforts) and was fired by the government. After the failure of the national workshops, the government tried to encourage Associations in another way. It created a Council for the Encouragement of Workers’ Associations’ to give financial support to projects which they decided to be worthy of support. Amongst these there were only two women’s projects. both of them plain seamstress associations.
in France
283
LA VOIX DES FEMMES (THE VOICE OF WOMEN) Most of the women’s projects of the 2nd Republic developed
without
state support.
One of the first a feminist newspaper which was founded on the 203.1848, a bare month after the Revolution. Foundress was EugCnie Niboyet, who also functioned for five days as ‘directrice’. Then on the 25.3. it was announced that the newspaper from now on would operate as a collective ‘Association Fraternelle’. The association called itself the ‘SociCtC de la Voix des Femmes’ (Society of the Voice of Women); members of the society, along with Eugenic Niboyet, were Jeanne Deroin, Suzanne Voilquin. Desiree Gay, and Amelie Pray, workingclass women, artists and women of the bourgeoisie. The aim of the society, according to paragraph 1 of its statutes, was ‘freedom for all men and women’; fraternity and equality were the preconditions to freedom, and so women demanded for themselves equality in the family, in the State, and the appropriate laws to guarantee this. The Society tried to implement this aim ‘by peaceful and moral means’, primarily by appealing to the public4 Tirib work was financed through subscriptions and loans to the newspaper. When 10 people agreed as a group to subscribe 1 sou weekly, they received a free magazine -a good system to ensure the support of ‘La Voix des Femmes’ and a subscription for poorer women also. To become a member, one had to be ‘introduced by two existing members and accepted by a relati\,e majority’. First. however, a ‘moral report’ had to be produced. Every member was entitled to vote. and a ‘central organising committee’. elected by a plenary assembly. was the ultimate decision-making authority. Membership fees varied according to income from 50 centimes to 3 Francs. These fees were to cover the running costs and finance the shops and workshops. To provide further support for workingclass women, charity shows were to be arranged. La Voir des Femmes soon became the living centre of the Women’s Movement. They used the opportunity presented by the newspaper and the society to develop a better understanding of their demands. alternatives, and self-help projects and to give each other practical support. The newspaper became a genuine ‘organe des inter&s de toutes’ (an organ serving the interests of all women), as proclaimed in the paper’s sub-title. Fraternity (they hadn’t yet come to the term ‘sisterhood’) and solidarity were no empty words but lived out in practice. This is at least the impression one gets of the first two months of the paper’s existence. As the conflict was La Voix des Femmes (The Voice of Women),
’ All quotations from ‘Rkglemem de la SociCtk de la Voix des femmes’.
1848 (translated
by M. Lanigan).
284
HELCA
GRUBITZSCH
of class interests became more acute with the inability of the governmel;t to ease the plight of the people through employment schemes, the Voix des Femmes fell victim to its own tendency to ensure harmony. Non-violent, pacifist, conciliatory were the methods by which the women of La Voix des Femmes hoped to implement their demands and those of the workers’ movement. However. as the non-violent Utopia began to evaporate under the repressive measures of the government. and communists and socialists were persecuted. and even their own newspaper was suspended during the elections of April-May 1848. still La Voix des Femmes called for peace and order. Finally. they even distanced themselves from colleagues who were driven on by an ‘unwise zeal’ (Desiree Gay probably belonged to these). Selfcensorship. retracting under political persecution. following up the ‘work of reconciliation’-none of this helped the women of La Void des Femmes; their newspaper died with the June Revolution.
LA POLITIQUE DES FEMMES (THE POLITICS OF WOMEN) Several women followed the logical outcome of their experiences and founded in June 1848 a new magazine. La Politique des Femmes. edited by a Society of Women-workers’. to which Desiree Gay among others belonged. The magazine was to represent the interests of working-class women. and for the first time the conflict of class interest between women employers and women workers was emphasised quite clearly. The women still considered it their task to act in a conciliatory manner. but they also took full account of the existing harsh social contradictions. They relied on the ability of working-class women to orpanise themselves and to real&e step by step their own concept of a new society -distrusting men as much as the rich and powerful. The same aim bound these women to the socialist men. but still they reserved for themselves the right to act as women in their own interests: ‘Our political aim is the same as that of men. But our position is different. Each one of us must retain herihts originality. Under the broad banner of socialism. the politics of women can march in the same front as the politics of men.’ The working-class women also insisted on the necessity for an organisation independent of the ‘privileged women’. ‘We are no longer willing to pay’ for the fine apartments and fine clothes of our in the discussion of a bosses’, said one woman ‘Group of Women in the Louvre Courtyard’. at the beginning of La Poliriqw des Femmes. The
’ All quotations. Poiirique desfemmes.
including the following. from La 1848 (translated b\ M. Lanigan).
‘socialist’ in this discussion made other relevant points: the ladies of the bourgeoisie, working for the good of the working-class women. should finally learn to support the concepts and organisations of the latter ‘instead of trying to organise us along their lines’; however, the establishing of living and working correlationships could only make slou progress. as the women ‘had certain habits which they couldn’t change’ or ‘ties, which prevented them from doing this’. They could however ‘associate themselves partially for one task or another’ in order to organise the provision of the family. shops and workshops. That this class-conscious position of working-class women should emerge in June 1848. just after the June Revolution is no coincidence. The revolt of the workers against the Republic, which had disappointed their hopes and had turned very quickly into a bourgeois Republic, was bloodily repressed by the government. With this repression. the Utopta of class-reconciliation was no longer a credible concept for manv. and the necessity for a class-conscious organisation the only conclusion one could draw from these experiences. But for the working-class women of La PolitiqLrf des Femmes. the call for Association was not restricted to the field of political work and production. the ‘shops and workshops’ whtch socialist men usuallv envisaged-they sought also ways for the collective orpanisation of housework and child-rearing. Unfortunately. we seldom find. in the available sources. concrete references to housework associations. Whether thts is because of the distorted perspective of a public awareness. which sees only what happens outside the home. or whether women actually very seldom came together to cope with their housework comunally is a question which I must leave open. In the lists of Associations of the ‘Almanach des Corporation\ Nouvelles’. we do find references to ‘Associatrons de Menage’. and an association called ‘La Menag&e’ (The Housewife). but these were probably not housework co-operatives but rather shops for household supplies. Most of the Women’s Associations were. like those of men. orpanised according to trades. There were Associations of seamstresses. of hatters. of polishers. of milk-suppliers. of uashervvomen. of plain corset-makers. shirt-seamstresses. and seamstresses. For us today it may seem surprising that there were so many enterprises which were run by women themselves. However. at the beginning of the 19th century. the division of work amongst the small workshops. which at that ttme still formed the basts of commercial industry. was normally based on ses Milliner. seamstress. embroiderer or florist were women’s trades: not only the workers. but also the owners or dealer and commission agents were
Women’s Projects and Co-operatives in France usually women. The organisation of women’s work in women’s workshops was then a more obvious step than the setting-up of mixed associations. The progress of large-scale industry reduced the distinctions according to sex in the various trades to such an extent that we now have to fight against prevailing attitudes and practice in order to set up women’s workshops. Whereas some enterprises for men still remained intact, there is today hardly a single handicraft which is a purely women’s trade. With this experience, we tend to idealise the activities of women at that time compared to the present Women’s Movement-a tendency which is not neccessarily advantageous in the understanding of our history.
slack season’. when they had no work. In contrast to normal enterprises, the following points are of special interest:
0 The profit belongs to all and % of this should
0
0
THE SEAMSTRESS ASSOCIATION In the
second number of La Polirique des Femmes, we find printed the plan for an Association of Seamstresses. a plan which gives us a more detailed insight into the structure of such a women’s enterprise. The Association consists of ‘reponsible’ and ‘free’ members.O The ‘responsible’ associate must be morally and professionally suited for their work; they form the administrative council of the Society. ‘which had all administrative powers’, the! appoint the Directresses and lay down the rules of behaviour. The ‘free’ members of the Association are day-labourers; these have a ‘right to a share in the profit based on the number of days worked in the Association. and a right to support according to the decision of the council of “responsible” members’. The work is organised on a hierarchical basis. According to this hierarchy. there are different rates of pay: the directresses receive twice as much as the workers (1 SOF per day). Men’s work is twice as well paid as women’s work -the messenger boy recei\,es the same as the directress (3.OOF per day). The working-day lasts according to law. 10 hr. from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening with half-an-hour dinner-break. The authors justify these working hours as follows: ‘This ruling is to enable the women to be at home at 6 o’clock. to provide for the household and to enable them to have their evening meal with the family.’ On top of this. there is overtime, ‘when necessary’. voluntary for the ‘free’ members. obligatory for ‘responsible’ members. Whereas the day labourers received extra pay for overtime worked-‘in relation to their daily pay’-, the ‘responsible’ members received holiday coupons, as ‘an equivalent for the
6 All quotations from La Pohpe (translated by M. Lanigan).
des femmes
2, 1848
285
0 0
serve as a reserve for sickness benefit, care in old-age and educational support for children (even though the ‘responsible’ members had the final decision). The directresses are elected by the ‘responsible’ associates. How these ‘responsible’ members were appointed, however. is not clear from the Statutes. Social security is much greater than in other enterprises because of the above-mentioned reserves and the possibility of counterbalancing the ‘saison morte’ with overtime coupons. Time spent at work is less than usual. as hardI\ any enterprise sticks to the legally fixed times. The Association is governed by the women members themselves and it makes its decisions autonomously.
In comparison to the normal practice of brutal exploitation of women workers, these points portra) very significant impiovements. No worker of the Association faced the threat of prostitution. as there were reserves for times of crisis. The pay was enough to live on, and the hours of work just about bearable. These were working conditions. which. albeit in a very modest way, provided a material security which was normally denied these working women. Viewed in this light. we can see that such a solution seemed to promise women ‘freedom and dignity‘. On the other hand the suggested seamstress Association illustrates quite clearly the barriers which often limited the association projects of that time. For the ‘day labourers’. who didn’t belong to the group of ‘responsible’ associates. there was little change in their status as wage earners except that a part of their pay was stopped in advance as a sort of social insurance. but they themselves had no control over this money. The handling of capital remained in the hands of the ‘responsible associates’ which gave them a sort of employer role. Whether the ‘responsible’ members at least tried out amongst themselves new forms of communal living and organisation of house and professional work. is again not clear from the statutes. With this concrete example. we see that the magical word ‘Association’ which seemed to promise liberation, self-organisation and socialist alternatives, did not necessaril! mean in reality a radical change in the organisation of work. When women at the beginning of the 19th centur) joined together to form an Association, then this was not necessarily at the same time a criticism of
286
HELCA GRUBITZSCH
the prevailing division of work between man and woman. The seamstress Association found it quite self-evident that a women after a 10 hr working day should then look after her husband and children. They even emphasised it as a positive aspect in their Statutes. that they had deliberatly laid down the working hours so as to allow women time for household duties. Even the women of La Politique des Fenmes who spoke at the ‘Discussion in the Louvre Courtyard’. never questioned the duties of the women in the family as mother and understanding partner of her husband. All the women fighters of that time. with very few exceptions (Claire DCmar, for example). even the socialists. believed in the concept that woman. because of her very motherhood. was called upon to work for a change in society. In this respect, they remained true to the Saint-Simonist theory which attributed a special capability for love to woman. and therefore made this the basis of human relationships and further development of mankind. For this reason, we often find an argumentation in the writings of the early feminists which we would roda), ascribe to the bourgeois motherhood ideology. At first. this fact irritated me quite seriously. as it destroyed the initial spontaneous indentlflcation with these women. However. more detailed research showed me that the ideological character of the motherhood argumentation of the early 19th century cannot have been so evident as it is today. After all. the new forms of the patriarchy. which developed along with capitalist methods of production. had not yet taken root in all social classes. For the proletarian women in particular. the concept of becoming a mother and having time for the rearing of children must halme been a positive and unredeemable promise for the future.
REMARKS CONCERNING METHOD UIth this example I would like to illustrate a problem which we always encounter again and again in women’s historical research: the problem of an identifying proximity and historical distance. The lack of historical identity for us women brings an alltoo-eas! admiration for women fighters in histoy. Our readiness to treat them not only as an ‘object’ of scientific research. but also to react with our own subjective perceptions and feelings. creates at first an affinity. an often spontaneous identification. If we were to stop at this point of our research. we would give a false picture of the women of those days and their Movement. a picture primarily tinted by our own predisposed concepts. This can then lead. for example. to a distortion of the sources in the direction we want. or to the elimination of points which irritate our concept (there are sufficient examples of this in more recent Women’s Literature). In view of this. it seems to me to be necessary.
in the course of scientific work. to break awav from this first process of identification and to consciousI! accept the foreignness which unavoidably exists because of the historical distance. This means asking exactlv why the women of that time wrote. felt and acted in one particular way and not another. These historical perceptions usually lead not only to a better understanding of the Women’s Movement of that time, but also to a productive questioning of our own values and norms. The way to the historical truth from which we could learn today. leads through many phases of proximity and distance. which finally can be considered as a hermeneutic
process of understanding.
REFERENCES Almanach des Corporations Nowelles.
1852. pp. 185 ff. In La femme nouvelle. Apostolar des ,femmes (the subsequent title of La femme libre). pp. 92-98. La Femme libre 1. Paris. 1832. Festy. 0. 1908. Le mouvemenl ouvrier au dCbur de la Monarchic de Juiller. Bibliotheque d’Histoire moderne. S.I. Festy. 0. 1915. Les Associations ouvriPres encouragees par la II’ R&publique. Paris. Fourier. Ch 1823. TrairP de I’Associarion domessrique er agricole. 2 Vols. Bossange, Paris. Gossez. R. 1967. Les ouvriers de Paris. 18461851. La Roche-sur-Yon Grubitzsch. Helga and Loretta Lagpacan. 1980. Freiheit ftir the Frauen. Freiheit fiir das Volk! Soziahsrrche Frauen in Frankreich. 1830-1848. Frankfurt. Grubitzsch. He&a. 1982. Mutterschaft und Mutterideologie in der Geschichte der Frauenbewegung. Archit, fur die Geschichre des Widersrandes und der Arbeif 5: 95 ff Grubitzsch. Helga. 1983. Wissen heil3t leben Der Kampf der Frauen urn die Bildung zu Beginn des 19 Jahrhunderts (Frankreich). In Brehmer. Ilse and Juhane Jacobi-DIrtrich. eds. Frauen in der Geschrchre I\’ pp. 171 ff. Diisseldorf. Janssen-Jurreir. Marielouise. 1976. Seximus. p. 219 Mimchen. M.. A. 183-l Sur I‘Ath&v?e des Femmes. tout rkemment etahI B Lyon. In Le Conseiiler desfemmes 19. pp. 289 ff. L’Opinion des Femmes 1-t. Paris. 1848. La Polrrique des Femmes l-2, Paris, 1848. R$lement de la SociCrC de la Voix des femmes. In La Voix des femmes 23. 14.4.1848. p. 2. StaIuts reglementaires de la SoclCti fondbe B Lyon sous le nom d’AthCnee de femmes. In Le Conseiller des femmes 20 (1834). pp. 309 ff. Tribune des femmes, Vols I + II. Paris. 183F1834 Tristan. Floia. 1844. L’union ouvriere. Paris-Lyon. Tristan. Flora. 1835. De la nCcessitC de faire un bon accueil aux femmes &tran@res. Delaunay. Paris. Wahrl. P. 1851. Des differentes formes de l’association ouvritire. In Almanach des Corporations Nouvelles pour 1852. pp. 117 ff. Sot. de la presse du travail. Paris. Zetkin. Clara. 1978. Zur Geschichte der proletarischen Frauenben’egung Deutschlands. Frankfurt/M
AngClique. Sophie-Caroline.
1832. Mesdames
Srudws Inr Forum.
Vol
R. No. 4. pp 2%2%.
19R5
0277-539?!RS
GrearBn~ain
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PcrgamonPress Ltd
WOMEN’S PROJECTS AND CO-OPERATIVES IN FRANCE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Kampstrasse
HELGA
GRL'BITZSCH
17. D-2856
Bramstedt.
West German)
Synopsis-Seamstresses. washerwomen and midwives establish co-operatives in order to organise their own work. independent of employers. and to divide their profit amongst themselves and to assure a reserve for harder times. for periods of sickness. for their old age. Women’s collectives publish feminist magazines. including a daily newspaper by and for women: they found co-operative schools or an oreanisarion for the support of single mothers. Women live in communes. make plans for women’s houses and women’s meeting-centres. And all this took place in the France of
1830-1818. In my paper.
I would like to present some of the self-organised women’s projects and cooperatives of that time and thereby also uncover information and sources which have remained buried under prevailing historioeraphy. Moreover. my further intention is to refute the commonlyheld prejudice which dismisses the ‘proletarian’ or ‘socialist’ Women’s Movement of the 19th centur) far too easily as having been ‘male-dominated’. a verdict frequently passed in Women’s Studies in German!. In \.ieu of this. it seems to me important to highlight historicallv the autonomous projects of proletarian and socialisr wsomen and to pay appropriate tribute to their;ignificance for the history of the Women’s Movement (not only in France!). Finally. I would like to approach a methodical prohlem which confronts me again and a_eain in my work: the contradiction between historical distance and personal proximity and identification with the historical theme. By this. I mean the toilsome process of approaching histor! as something which is extraneous and yet related to us: this problem of. on the one hand not wiping out our present-da! knowledge. feelings. values and norms from our research. and on the orher hand. nor using these as a dtstorted pau_eefrom the women of former flmrs
Right up to the present da). the ‘proletarian Women’s Movement’ is equated. following Clara Zetkins definition. with the ‘organised classconscious Women’s Movement’ and consequentI\ with the involvement of women in worker;’ organisations such as trade unions and political parties. According to this. the term ‘socialist Women’s Movement’ is limited to the activities of women in socialist parties. and in German) this means mainly the S.P.D. And so the contradlction between the ‘autonomous‘ and ‘socialist’ Women’s Movement can be generalised. a contradiction which could develop historicall\ only with the appearance of the so-called ‘scientific socialism’ and of the Marxist theory of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The history of the proletarian and socialist Women’s Movement is confronted then with the verdict that it has subjected itself to class interest and to the domination of male theorists and party-leaders. This criticism. certainly applicable in the case of women organised in the S.P.D. (Social Democratic Party) or K.P.D. (Communist Party) in Germanv. cannot be made of the ‘proletarian Women’s
Movement’
as a whole.
an autonomous
socialist
There
exists
Women’s
the tradition
Movement
of
which
has its
roots in the 19th century and is very much alive today in other European countries and in the U.S.A. In France at the beginning of the 19th centur!. women workers fought conscious of their identity as women arrd as proletarians for their rights and for better living conditions and tried to change their workingand living structures. For them. feminism and/or socialism was not a ‘dilemma’ (Janssen-Jurreit. 1976). nor was autonomy and organisation a contradiction. midwives Seamstresses. washerwomen and founded co-operatives. to organise their work independently of employers and to divide their profit amongst themselves and to create reserves for times of distress. sickness and for their old age. Women’s collectives published feminist magazines. including a newspaper by and for women. and founded co-operative schools or an organisation for the support of single mothers. Women workers lived in communes and made plans for Women’s shelters and Communication I would 279
Centres.
like to present
here some of these projects
280
HELGA
GRUBITZSCH
and thereby highlight a particular aspect of the proletarian and socialist Women’s Movement. an aspect which up to now has received little attention in Germany because of the peculiarities of the history of the Women’s Movement in that country. I hope this may also contribute to doing away with the prejudiced mistrust of the socialist Women’s Movement and its history, a distrust often encountered in German feminist circles. ‘Freedom for women. Freedom for the Peoplethrough a new organisation of housework and industry’-this was the motto which a collective of French women adopted for their women’s magazine in 1832. La Femme Libre (The Free Woman) was produced by women for women. The founders were Desiree V&et (married name Gay), a milliner. Suzanne Monnier (married name Voilquin), an embroiderer and Jeanne-Victoire Jacob; the publication team was later joined by Marie-Reine Guindorf (married name Flichy). They all belonged originally to the Saint-Simonist group, a socialist group which enjoyed great popularity among working men and women after the February Revolution in France. The Saint-Simonists considered the emancipation of women as a necessary pre-condition to a change in society, and after lengthy and fiery conflicts within the group-which I cannot discuss herethey came to the conclusion that the women should not be integrated into the existing hierarchy of the group as this hierarchy reflected male norms. The women should rather stand up for themselves and seek for themselves the right way to freedom. The founding of the magazine La Femme tibre-later called Tribune des Femmes (Women’s Tribune)was the first independent public step of the proletarian St-Simonist women. Of the women on the editorial staff only Suzanne Voilquin remained loyal to Saint-Simonism, Marie-Reine turned quite quickly to Fourierism. about whose theories Desiree V&et became more and more enthusiastic. Fourier also worked for the freedom of women and declared this freedom as a yard-stick for social freedom. Further common ground with the SaintSimonists was the basic concept that every person according to interest and ability. should be able to find an appropriate and equally recognised place in society. The precondition to the realising of this Utopia was the abolishing of all privileges and inequalities and also of heritage (but not of private property!). Both the Saint-Simonists and Fourier agreed-in spite of differences in detail-that the way to this new society was through the Association, what is, in its broadest sense. through the free union of individuals for the purpose of communal living and/or working. For the early socialists, this term was by no means limited only to production: the Saint-Simonists used the term Association also for the relationship
between man and woman, a relationship which they sought to build on a concept of equal. partnership. Fourier’s ‘Phalansteres’ were also Associations: in these living and production communes, production was based on a union of work, talent and capital. and reproductive tasks such as housework, child-rearing. caring for the ill and the old were communally organised. ‘Association’ was the keyword of the workers’ movement of the 1840s-it signified both workers’ coalitions which meant beyond the legal framework of a corporation and also alternative forms of production under workers’ control. As a term in the struggle of the working class, and also that of the Women’s Movement, the word Association denoted primarily a coalition which broke through traditional barriers in practising new forms of communal living and working. The founder-members of La Femme Libre formed themselves into an Association and this very form of organisation of their work indicates their commitment to bringing about social changes. They formed an editorial collective where every article was discussed and a consensus reached. Many women signed their articles with their first name as a matter of principle, because they refused to write under the name of their fathers or their husbands. Controversies amongst editorial staff-for example, in moral questions-were documented. and minority opinions tolerated and published. as long as they did not question the aim of freedom for women. There were however very likely conflicts and strains about which we find no material: the fact that Suzanne Voilquin continued the paper alone from spring 1833 would seem to indicate this. However, by today’s standards. it is remarkable that different political opinions on the editorial staff worked together for the common goal of the emancipation of women and that the magazine extended way beyond its original Saint-Simonist framework. What bound these women together was not only their struggle for women’s emancipation but also their status as proletarians (as they called themselves). a status which allowed them to experience for themselves the ‘troubles of the people’. For them freedom for women was inseparable from freedom for the working class and this freedom could, in both cases, only be achieved through an extensive change in society, affecting both the private and public sphere (housework and industry). The Association was the political weapon with which the women were able to create new living and working conditions in their own time, and with which they could work towards a future change in society. The Femme Libre also presented actual Association projects, such as a women’s shelter, where women could be protected against the brutality of
Women’s Projects and Co-operatives
men and could live and work together. ARTISTE ET INDUSTRIELLE’ (Art and Handicrafts’ Association)
THE ‘ASSOCIATION
Angelique and Sophie-Caroline, two SaintSimonists, presented their concept of an Art and Handicrafts’ Association in 1832. Whether their plans ever became a reality, cannot be ascertained today. However, the ambitions of the women are a highly valuable reflection of the socialist/feminist thinking of that time. The immediate impulse for their project was given by the raping of a 16-year old worker, a case which sheds illuminating light on the situation of young women in the industrial cities of that time. Without the traditional back-up of the family, without legal protection and emotionally isolated, they were an all-to-easy prey for the brutality or seductive ‘games’ of men. ‘These incidents recur daily in our society. If one were to investigate and list out the complete range of immoral behaviour of men towards women, one would see that not a day. not one hour goes by, without some such crime of exploitation.’ (Angelique. Sophie-Caroline. 1832).’ These ‘fallen women’ were rejected by societythey were morally judged for something which in reality was a question of their material and emotional poverty on the one hand and of the brutality of men on the other hand. Even the and Sophie ‘privileged women’, as Angelique emphasised. closed their eyes to the poverty of young working-girls-the former were well-protected by their wealth and needed have little fear of such a ‘social downfall’. It would therefore be of immense advantage to the poor women and girls to join together in an Association where they could live and work together in emotional and material security. Angelique and Sophie-Caroline’s concrete proposal was for a ‘Saint-Simonist Art and Handicrafts’ Association’ for single girls and women. The older women (widowed or deserted by their husbands) would. by virtue of their experience, lead the younger girls; these would learn a handicraft which could be useful to the co-operative; finally the members should be ‘deeply convinced of the necessity for social contact, unity and love amongst all members of the community’. No-one would be paid for individual work and all takings would be paid into the collective income. With this communally-earned money. the basic necessities of life
’ All translations, Lanigan.
including the following. by Michael
in France
281
would be met: accommodation, food, heating. light and washing. For clothing and special requirements they should have a calculated 44.40 Francs per year. This was not very much. even though the average daily wage was a mere 1 Franc per day. It is noticeable also that there was provision in the house for a ‘sick ward’ but no money for medicines or doctors. In spite of this rather restricted framework, this project must have appeared a Utopia for many working women of the time: it provided all members with a reasonable income; occasional losses through individual unemployment or sickness could be covered; it provided accommodation with appropriate protection from persecution by men. and provided also an emotional entity which kept the women from isolation and loneliness. We may today have some reservations about the low level of individual freedom and/or the leadership role of the older women, but these doubts seem to me to be historically unjustifiable. Trust in the experience of elders waned only in the last century, in consequence of the total reliance on achievementcriteria as a measure of the value of a person. This process was just as much a result of industrialisation as was the increasing individualising of people. a process which, at the beginning of the 19th century, was noticeable in the lower social classes more as a loss of the security of traditional social structures than as a need for individual self-fulfilment and personal freedom.
L’ATHkNkE
DES FEMMES (THE WOMEIV’S ATHENAEUM):
At the beginning of 1834, Eugenic Niboyet. a former Saint-Simonist and publisher of the magazine Le Conseiller des Femmes (The Womens’ Adviser) founded in Lyon, along with other women whose names have not been handed down to us. the ‘AthtnCe des Femmes’, a school for further education for women and future women-teachers. The founders of the AthtnCe saw their work in the framework of a social movement which served the development of mankind. Their aim was the moral and intellectual cultivation of women of all classes. We still have today the statutes of this Association. Membership of the Societ! was confined to women who could be proposed by an existing member and who were accepted by the majority of women in the ‘Commission’ (see below). The membership fee was 20F per year. which wasn’t ver! much but which still restricted the circle of members
’ In French usage of that time. ‘AthtnCe‘ was a forum for public courses and lectures.
282
HELGA
GRUBITZSCH
to women with a fairly steady income. The money was necessary for basic equipment for the project. as all courses were to be free of charge-a library and reading-room were also in the plans. Each associate had the right to offer courses of her choice ‘as long as she described her methods and intentions’ (Para. 7). The syllabus was set by the Commission. Men were denied entry, except by express permission of the Commission. The Commission was the governing body of the school. It was composed of 9 women, who were elected by secret ballot of the plenary assembly: every three months 5 (or 4) different members were elected to the commission. This sort of rotation allowed the maximum participation by all in the leadership and organisation of the ‘Athenee and avoided overburdening any individual member. Every two weeks the associate women would meet to inform and be informed about the different work in progress. All meetings of the Athenee were open to all members and these were always informed in advance; moreover, minutes were made of everv meeting, so that there was no lack of ‘transparent!:’ in this project. nor of basis-oriented democracy (in spite of the pragmatic division of work in the Commission!). It is certain that the ‘AthtWe des Femme,’ began its work in 1833. How long the society existed. however. we cannot say. The Comeiller des Femmes. which became the magazine of the ‘Ath&+Ze’. ceased publishing in September 183-1: EugCnie Niboyet carried on the paper under the name Mosai’que L?,onaise. and this ma! be an indication of the collapse of the project. More likely. however. is that the ‘Athenee des Femmes’ ran into conflict with the coalitions laM (passed also in 1834) of the king Louis Philippe. The ban on associations and workers’ coalitions aimed at repressing the socialist and republican opposition to the July monarchy. The women’s movement was also affected. With this ‘irreligious law against the Associations’. Suzanne Voilquin could no longer see any way of carrying out useful political work in France. She closed down the Tribune des Femmes. However. the association idea remained alive amongst the workers and in the Women’s Movement and its theory was developed further.
FLORA TRISTAN’S ‘SOCIETY
FOR FOREIGN
WOMEN’
Flora Tristan published the Union OurWre at the beginning of the 1840s. up to then the most extensive concept for the international union of the proletariat. But she had also previously occupied herself with the concept of the Association: in 1835. she had published a brochure concerning the
‘necessity to receive foreign women properly’. Here she described the necessity of the Association ‘in order to build up a new society’, and in particular. to improve the lot of women. The women whose cause Flora took up in this treatise were the foreigners and other strangers to the place. Her idea to create a Centre for them was the result of her own experiences as she mentioned in her brochure. Up to 1835 she had ahead! struggled through for 10 years with her two children and tried to escape the persecution of her husband by travelling. The degradation and difficulties which she as a woman travelling ‘alone’ experienced (a situation which to a large extent even today has not changed). prompted her on her return from Peru to go about setting up a contact-and-communicationcentre for women foreign to the locality. She writes: ‘A thousand annoyances. a thousand times hospitality and politeness lacking’. the curiosity or indifference of fellow human beings. one’s own inexperience. and fear of foreign habits. all make travelling for a single woman a venture frought with hazards; on top of that the suggestive remarks, the sexual approaches and moral prejudices to which a single woman is exposed in a man’s world. Whether women travel for pleasure and education or on business. they will always find barriers in their way and traps laid out for them. Worst off are those women. however. who flee the condemnation and slander of the province. be it because they have become pregnant outside of marriage or ha\ae left their husbands. They are almost always penniless. because: ‘Rich women are very seldom forced to separate from their husbands. as they usual]>, live separate]! anyway. right from the beginning of their marriage.‘? In Paris. the poor women meet only with contempt and loneliness. ‘this populous town becomes for them a desert’. For these women especially. it is extreme]! important that the\- have some place in this huge city where they feel safe and find support. However. Flora emphasised very clearly in her brochure that help could be offered only to those who were prepared to live a ‘decent life‘. The moral code of this society is strict. ‘Virtue’ being its maxim of prime importance. Flora’s motive for this strictness was not a selfrighteous segregation from prostitution. Quite the contrary! She was one of the very few who sau clearly that ‘the reason for this evil was practical]! alwavs more likely to be found in society than in the indi\:idual’. She was however concerned to protect the Association from developing a bad reputation
’ All quotations from Flora Tristan. 1835 (translated b! M. Lanigan)
Women‘s
Projects
and Co-operatives
prevent the realisation of her aims. Finally. the Centre was to be open to all travelling and single women of all social classes, it should help them in all their affairs, with information and contacts. and should help to find work and hotels. To this end, the Association had to conform to the moral standards of the 19th century, and ensure an absolutely honourable reputation. in order to protect the women who stayed in the Centre and to develop good contacts. The ‘Society for Foreign Women’ devoted itself to women. but was not a women’s project. The statutes which Flora developed. envisaged equal participation by men and women. The financing of the Association. however. had not been worked out: as a philanthropic work. it would probably have received donations. Whether this plan ever became a reality. we cannot say. but it is likely that such a Centre for Travelling Women awaits its realisation even today. which would otherwise
THE SECOND REPC’BLXC The February Revolution of 1848, which brought about the 2nd Republic in France. gave both the Workers’ Movement and the Women’s Movement fresh impetus. The most acute problem for the proletarian women and likewise the workers was the organisation of their work. The socialists saw their hope in the form of the Association, as a means of creating work for all without exploitation. The government was called upon to open up national workshops to alleviate the plight of the people. On March 2nd 1848. Disiree Gay appealed to the Minister for Labour to open up national workshops for women. as well as national restaurants and laundries which would be run by Women’s Associations. However. the ‘Ateliers nationaux‘ which were finally set up by the Republic had very little in common with the socialist concept of Associations as self-governing co-operatives. They were structured on a hierarchical basis. were under state control and showed no consideration in the organisation of the work for the needs of those involved. Women’s workshops were only set up after much pressure and revolt by women. Desiree Gay bluntly criticised the conditions in the women’s workshops (which to a great extent owed their existence to her efforts) and was fired by the government. After the failure of the national workshops, the government tried to encourage Associations in another way. It created a Council for the Encouragement of Workers’ Associations’ to give financial support to projects which they decided to be worthy of support. Amongst these there were only two women’s projects. both of them plain seamstress associations.
in France
283
LA VOIX DES FEMMES (THE VOICE OF WOMEN) Most of the women’s projects of the 2nd Republic developed
without
state support.
One of the first a feminist newspaper which was founded on the 203.1848, a bare month after the Revolution. Foundress was EugCnie Niboyet, who also functioned for five days as ‘directrice’. Then on the 25.3. it was announced that the newspaper from now on would operate as a collective ‘Association Fraternelle’. The association called itself the ‘SociCtC de la Voix des Femmes’ (Society of the Voice of Women); members of the society, along with Eugenic Niboyet, were Jeanne Deroin, Suzanne Voilquin. Desiree Gay, and Amelie Pray, workingclass women, artists and women of the bourgeoisie. The aim of the society, according to paragraph 1 of its statutes, was ‘freedom for all men and women’; fraternity and equality were the preconditions to freedom, and so women demanded for themselves equality in the family, in the State, and the appropriate laws to guarantee this. The Society tried to implement this aim ‘by peaceful and moral means’, primarily by appealing to the public4 Tirib work was financed through subscriptions and loans to the newspaper. When 10 people agreed as a group to subscribe 1 sou weekly, they received a free magazine -a good system to ensure the support of ‘La Voix des Femmes’ and a subscription for poorer women also. To become a member, one had to be ‘introduced by two existing members and accepted by a relati\,e majority’. First. however, a ‘moral report’ had to be produced. Every member was entitled to vote. and a ‘central organising committee’. elected by a plenary assembly. was the ultimate decision-making authority. Membership fees varied according to income from 50 centimes to 3 Francs. These fees were to cover the running costs and finance the shops and workshops. To provide further support for workingclass women, charity shows were to be arranged. La Voir des Femmes soon became the living centre of the Women’s Movement. They used the opportunity presented by the newspaper and the society to develop a better understanding of their demands. alternatives, and self-help projects and to give each other practical support. The newspaper became a genuine ‘organe des inter&s de toutes’ (an organ serving the interests of all women), as proclaimed in the paper’s sub-title. Fraternity (they hadn’t yet come to the term ‘sisterhood’) and solidarity were no empty words but lived out in practice. This is at least the impression one gets of the first two months of the paper’s existence. As the conflict was La Voix des Femmes (The Voice of Women),
’ All quotations from ‘Rkglemem de la SociCtk de la Voix des femmes’.
1848 (translated
by M. Lanigan).
284
HELCA
GRUBITZSCH
of class interests became more acute with the inability of the governmel;t to ease the plight of the people through employment schemes, the Voix des Femmes fell victim to its own tendency to ensure harmony. Non-violent, pacifist, conciliatory were the methods by which the women of La Voix des Femmes hoped to implement their demands and those of the workers’ movement. However. as the non-violent Utopia began to evaporate under the repressive measures of the government. and communists and socialists were persecuted. and even their own newspaper was suspended during the elections of April-May 1848. still La Voix des Femmes called for peace and order. Finally. they even distanced themselves from colleagues who were driven on by an ‘unwise zeal’ (Desiree Gay probably belonged to these). Selfcensorship. retracting under political persecution. following up the ‘work of reconciliation’-none of this helped the women of La Void des Femmes; their newspaper died with the June Revolution.
LA POLITIQUE DES FEMMES (THE POLITICS OF WOMEN) Several women followed the logical outcome of their experiences and founded in June 1848 a new magazine. La Politique des Femmes. edited by a Society of Women-workers’. to which Desiree Gay among others belonged. The magazine was to represent the interests of working-class women. and for the first time the conflict of class interest between women employers and women workers was emphasised quite clearly. The women still considered it their task to act in a conciliatory manner. but they also took full account of the existing harsh social contradictions. They relied on the ability of working-class women to orpanise themselves and to real&e step by step their own concept of a new society -distrusting men as much as the rich and powerful. The same aim bound these women to the socialist men. but still they reserved for themselves the right to act as women in their own interests: ‘Our political aim is the same as that of men. But our position is different. Each one of us must retain herihts originality. Under the broad banner of socialism. the politics of women can march in the same front as the politics of men.’ The working-class women also insisted on the necessity for an organisation independent of the ‘privileged women’. ‘We are no longer willing to pay’ for the fine apartments and fine clothes of our in the discussion of a bosses’, said one woman ‘Group of Women in the Louvre Courtyard’. at the beginning of La Poliriqw des Femmes. The
’ All quotations. Poiirique desfemmes.
including the following. from La 1848 (translated b\ M. Lanigan).
‘socialist’ in this discussion made other relevant points: the ladies of the bourgeoisie, working for the good of the working-class women. should finally learn to support the concepts and organisations of the latter ‘instead of trying to organise us along their lines’; however, the establishing of living and working correlationships could only make slou progress. as the women ‘had certain habits which they couldn’t change’ or ‘ties, which prevented them from doing this’. They could however ‘associate themselves partially for one task or another’ in order to organise the provision of the family. shops and workshops. That this class-conscious position of working-class women should emerge in June 1848. just after the June Revolution is no coincidence. The revolt of the workers against the Republic, which had disappointed their hopes and had turned very quickly into a bourgeois Republic, was bloodily repressed by the government. With this repression. the Utopta of class-reconciliation was no longer a credible concept for manv. and the necessity for a class-conscious organisation the only conclusion one could draw from these experiences. But for the working-class women of La PolitiqLrf des Femmes. the call for Association was not restricted to the field of political work and production. the ‘shops and workshops’ whtch socialist men usuallv envisaged-they sought also ways for the collective orpanisation of housework and child-rearing. Unfortunately. we seldom find. in the available sources. concrete references to housework associations. Whether thts is because of the distorted perspective of a public awareness. which sees only what happens outside the home. or whether women actually very seldom came together to cope with their housework comunally is a question which I must leave open. In the lists of Associations of the ‘Almanach des Corporation\ Nouvelles’. we do find references to ‘Associatrons de Menage’. and an association called ‘La Menag&e’ (The Housewife). but these were probably not housework co-operatives but rather shops for household supplies. Most of the Women’s Associations were. like those of men. orpanised according to trades. There were Associations of seamstresses. of hatters. of polishers. of milk-suppliers. of uashervvomen. of plain corset-makers. shirt-seamstresses. and seamstresses. For us today it may seem surprising that there were so many enterprises which were run by women themselves. However. at the beginning of the 19th century. the division of work amongst the small workshops. which at that ttme still formed the basts of commercial industry. was normally based on ses Milliner. seamstress. embroiderer or florist were women’s trades: not only the workers. but also the owners or dealer and commission agents were
Women’s Projects and Co-operatives in France usually women. The organisation of women’s work in women’s workshops was then a more obvious step than the setting-up of mixed associations. The progress of large-scale industry reduced the distinctions according to sex in the various trades to such an extent that we now have to fight against prevailing attitudes and practice in order to set up women’s workshops. Whereas some enterprises for men still remained intact, there is today hardly a single handicraft which is a purely women’s trade. With this experience, we tend to idealise the activities of women at that time compared to the present Women’s Movement-a tendency which is not neccessarily advantageous in the understanding of our history.
slack season’. when they had no work. In contrast to normal enterprises, the following points are of special interest:
0 The profit belongs to all and % of this should
0
0
THE SEAMSTRESS ASSOCIATION In the
second number of La Polirique des Femmes, we find printed the plan for an Association of Seamstresses. a plan which gives us a more detailed insight into the structure of such a women’s enterprise. The Association consists of ‘reponsible’ and ‘free’ members.O The ‘responsible’ associate must be morally and professionally suited for their work; they form the administrative council of the Society. ‘which had all administrative powers’, the! appoint the Directresses and lay down the rules of behaviour. The ‘free’ members of the Association are day-labourers; these have a ‘right to a share in the profit based on the number of days worked in the Association. and a right to support according to the decision of the council of “responsible” members’. The work is organised on a hierarchical basis. According to this hierarchy. there are different rates of pay: the directresses receive twice as much as the workers (1 SOF per day). Men’s work is twice as well paid as women’s work -the messenger boy recei\,es the same as the directress (3.OOF per day). The working-day lasts according to law. 10 hr. from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening with half-an-hour dinner-break. The authors justify these working hours as follows: ‘This ruling is to enable the women to be at home at 6 o’clock. to provide for the household and to enable them to have their evening meal with the family.’ On top of this. there is overtime, ‘when necessary’. voluntary for the ‘free’ members. obligatory for ‘responsible’ members. Whereas the day labourers received extra pay for overtime worked-‘in relation to their daily pay’-, the ‘responsible’ members received holiday coupons, as ‘an equivalent for the
6 All quotations from La Pohpe (translated by M. Lanigan).
des femmes
2, 1848
285
0 0
serve as a reserve for sickness benefit, care in old-age and educational support for children (even though the ‘responsible’ members had the final decision). The directresses are elected by the ‘responsible’ associates. How these ‘responsible’ members were appointed, however. is not clear from the Statutes. Social security is much greater than in other enterprises because of the above-mentioned reserves and the possibility of counterbalancing the ‘saison morte’ with overtime coupons. Time spent at work is less than usual. as hardI\ any enterprise sticks to the legally fixed times. The Association is governed by the women members themselves and it makes its decisions autonomously.
In comparison to the normal practice of brutal exploitation of women workers, these points portra) very significant impiovements. No worker of the Association faced the threat of prostitution. as there were reserves for times of crisis. The pay was enough to live on, and the hours of work just about bearable. These were working conditions. which. albeit in a very modest way, provided a material security which was normally denied these working women. Viewed in this light. we can see that such a solution seemed to promise women ‘freedom and dignity‘. On the other hand the suggested seamstress Association illustrates quite clearly the barriers which often limited the association projects of that time. For the ‘day labourers’. who didn’t belong to the group of ‘responsible’ associates. there was little change in their status as wage earners except that a part of their pay was stopped in advance as a sort of social insurance. but they themselves had no control over this money. The handling of capital remained in the hands of the ‘responsible associates’ which gave them a sort of employer role. Whether the ‘responsible’ members at least tried out amongst themselves new forms of communal living and organisation of house and professional work. is again not clear from the statutes. With this concrete example. we see that the magical word ‘Association’ which seemed to promise liberation, self-organisation and socialist alternatives, did not necessaril! mean in reality a radical change in the organisation of work. When women at the beginning of the 19th centur) joined together to form an Association, then this was not necessarily at the same time a criticism of
286
HELCA GRUBITZSCH
the prevailing division of work between man and woman. The seamstress Association found it quite self-evident that a women after a 10 hr working day should then look after her husband and children. They even emphasised it as a positive aspect in their Statutes. that they had deliberatly laid down the working hours so as to allow women time for household duties. Even the women of La Politique des Fenmes who spoke at the ‘Discussion in the Louvre Courtyard’. never questioned the duties of the women in the family as mother and understanding partner of her husband. All the women fighters of that time. with very few exceptions (Claire DCmar, for example). even the socialists. believed in the concept that woman. because of her very motherhood. was called upon to work for a change in society. In this respect, they remained true to the Saint-Simonist theory which attributed a special capability for love to woman. and therefore made this the basis of human relationships and further development of mankind. For this reason, we often find an argumentation in the writings of the early feminists which we would roda), ascribe to the bourgeois motherhood ideology. At first. this fact irritated me quite seriously. as it destroyed the initial spontaneous indentlflcation with these women. However. more detailed research showed me that the ideological character of the motherhood argumentation of the early 19th century cannot have been so evident as it is today. After all. the new forms of the patriarchy. which developed along with capitalist methods of production. had not yet taken root in all social classes. For the proletarian women in particular. the concept of becoming a mother and having time for the rearing of children must halme been a positive and unredeemable promise for the future.
REMARKS CONCERNING METHOD UIth this example I would like to illustrate a problem which we always encounter again and again in women’s historical research: the problem of an identifying proximity and historical distance. The lack of historical identity for us women brings an alltoo-eas! admiration for women fighters in histoy. Our readiness to treat them not only as an ‘object’ of scientific research. but also to react with our own subjective perceptions and feelings. creates at first an affinity. an often spontaneous identification. If we were to stop at this point of our research. we would give a false picture of the women of those days and their Movement. a picture primarily tinted by our own predisposed concepts. This can then lead. for example. to a distortion of the sources in the direction we want. or to the elimination of points which irritate our concept (there are sufficient examples of this in more recent Women’s Literature). In view of this. it seems to me to be necessary.
in the course of scientific work. to break awav from this first process of identification and to consciousI! accept the foreignness which unavoidably exists because of the historical distance. This means asking exactlv why the women of that time wrote. felt and acted in one particular way and not another. These historical perceptions usually lead not only to a better understanding of the Women’s Movement of that time, but also to a productive questioning of our own values and norms. The way to the historical truth from which we could learn today. leads through many phases of proximity and distance. which finally can be considered as a hermeneutic
process of understanding.
REFERENCES Almanach des Corporations Nowelles.
1852. pp. 185 ff. In La femme nouvelle. Apostolar des ,femmes (the subsequent title of La femme libre). pp. 92-98. La Femme libre 1. Paris. 1832. Festy. 0. 1908. Le mouvemenl ouvrier au dCbur de la Monarchic de Juiller. Bibliotheque d’Histoire moderne. S.I. Festy. 0. 1915. Les Associations ouvriPres encouragees par la II’ R&publique. Paris. Fourier. Ch 1823. TrairP de I’Associarion domessrique er agricole. 2 Vols. Bossange, Paris. Gossez. R. 1967. Les ouvriers de Paris. 18461851. La Roche-sur-Yon Grubitzsch. Helga and Loretta Lagpacan. 1980. Freiheit ftir the Frauen. Freiheit fiir das Volk! Soziahsrrche Frauen in Frankreich. 1830-1848. Frankfurt. Grubitzsch. He&a. 1982. Mutterschaft und Mutterideologie in der Geschichte der Frauenbewegung. Archit, fur die Geschichre des Widersrandes und der Arbeif 5: 95 ff Grubitzsch. Helga. 1983. Wissen heil3t leben Der Kampf der Frauen urn die Bildung zu Beginn des 19 Jahrhunderts (Frankreich). In Brehmer. Ilse and Juhane Jacobi-DIrtrich. eds. Frauen in der Geschrchre I\’ pp. 171 ff. Diisseldorf. Janssen-Jurreir. Marielouise. 1976. Seximus. p. 219 Mimchen. M.. A. 183-l Sur I‘Ath&v?e des Femmes. tout rkemment etahI B Lyon. In Le Conseiiler desfemmes 19. pp. 289 ff. L’Opinion des Femmes 1-t. Paris. 1848. La Polrrique des Femmes l-2, Paris, 1848. R$lement de la SociCrC de la Voix des femmes. In La Voix des femmes 23. 14.4.1848. p. 2. StaIuts reglementaires de la SoclCti fondbe B Lyon sous le nom d’AthCnee de femmes. In Le Conseiller des femmes 20 (1834). pp. 309 ff. Tribune des femmes, Vols I + II. Paris. 183F1834 Tristan. Floia. 1844. L’union ouvriere. Paris-Lyon. Tristan. Flora. 1835. De la nCcessitC de faire un bon accueil aux femmes &tran@res. Delaunay. Paris. Wahrl. P. 1851. Des differentes formes de l’association ouvritire. In Almanach des Corporations Nouvelles pour 1852. pp. 117 ff. Sot. de la presse du travail. Paris. Zetkin. Clara. 1978. Zur Geschichte der proletarischen Frauenben’egung Deutschlands. Frankfurt/M
AngClique. Sophie-Caroline.
1832. Mesdames