Preliminary Programme

Wed 22 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 23 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Sat 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 22 March 2006 8:30
K-1 WOM23 Varieties of Feminism I: International Perspectives
Room K
Network: Women and Gender Chair: Bonnie Smith
Organizers: - Discussant: Bonnie Smith
Florence Binard : Biology, Sexuality and the Sexual Order in Relation to Feminism in the 1920s in Great Britain
The object of the paper will be to show that the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's work and the advances in the fields of biology and especially
genetics at the turn of the twentieth century greatly influenced the development in Great Britain of feminist and anti-feminist theory. The
works of Gynaecologist ... (Show more)
The object of the paper will be to show that the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's work and the advances in the fields of biology and especially
genetics at the turn of the twentieth century greatly influenced the development in Great Britain of feminist and anti-feminist theory. The
works of Gynaecologist Arabella Kenealy, Feminism and Sex-Extinction (1920), of Charlotte Haldane, Motherhood and Its Enemies (1927) and other mostly female authors of this period will be analysed in terms of
how they contributed to the decline of what was then called « old feminism ». The fear of the disappearance of biological sex-differences
potentially leading to the extinction of the British «race », was such that heterosexuality and marriage came to be presented as the only path to women's physical and mental health. (Show less)

Silke Neunsinger, Pernilla Jonsson : Feminine Finances. Funding the socialist and bourgeois women's movement - a transnational approach
What opportunities does the individual have if he or she does not accept the ruling political order and wants to change it? One course of action is to join an organisation. Collective organisation in response to the Women’s question (Quinnofrågan) represented a challenge to the prevailing social order. The movement ... (Show more)
What opportunities does the individual have if he or she does not accept the ruling political order and wants to change it? One course of action is to join an organisation. Collective organisation in response to the Women’s question (Quinnofrågan) represented a challenge to the prevailing social order. The movement for female suffrage was one example of this development, where the women’s question inspired a mass movement. But mobilisation costs and women have not always legally had the same access to capital, politics and public and other resources as men. We state that access to resources has an impact on organisation and mobilisation.
The object of our research is to establish the importance of resources, both monetary and others within the women’s movements. We are going to discuss these movement’s economic strategies, and investigate how these strategies were legitimised. We are going to focus on a comparison between organisations in Canada and Sweden, and between socialist and bourgeois organisations. These two different wings of the women’s movement have been very important women’s organisations both nationally and internationally. They are interesting as they represent two different ideologies, directed towards different target groups, and they possessed different organisational structures. Both wings are studied during the period between the 1880s and the 1950s. We wanted to trace their development from the period when they were established, which could shed light on the problems the new women’s organisations had to face in the beginning of their existence. In order to distinguish the degree to which ideology, social background and organisational structure might have had an impact on financial strategies and set limits for the possibilities to do politics we will do comparisons. We are also having a closer look at the importance of the international branches of these organisations in order to understand in what ways these organisational resources could be used at a national level.
The principal questions we are interested in are: How did these organisations finance their internal and external work? What kind of resources did they mobilise? How did they use their economic resources? What role did the social background of members and the organisational structure play in their choice of strategies? How did they try to legitimise their financial strategies? (Show less)

Anne Revillard : Bringing the movement within the state: the Comité du Travail féminin (1965-1981), or the unknown origins of French state feminism
State feminism has become a focus of inquiry for political and social scientists since the 1990s, and the historical description of governmental institutions in charge of women’s interests and rights is still a work a progress. Whereas accounts of French state feminism often focus on the experience of the Roudy ... (Show more)
State feminism has become a focus of inquiry for political and social scientists since the 1990s, and the historical description of governmental institutions in charge of women’s interests and rights is still a work a progress. Whereas accounts of French state feminism often focus on the experience of the Roudy ministry (1981-1986), this paper aims at shedding light on an earlier, much less known experience, that of the Comité du Travail Féminin, an advisory committee for women’s labor that was created within the department of Labor in 1965, and lasted until 1981. This work is based upon an analysis of the archives of the committee, and interviews with former members.

First, I will give an account of the origins of this committee, showing that it was created following demands that had been made by feminine organizations since the beginning of the 1950s. Within the broader context of the post-war French women’s movement, I will stress the role played by individual women who where characterized by their double affiliation, to feminine organizations and political parties. Most prominent among them was Marcelle Devaud, who became the president of the committee.

Then, analyzing the committee’s work over the years, I will focus on three main aspects in order to shed light on some stakes implied in the penetration of women’s rights activists within the state. First, I will analyze the committee’s relationship to the department of labor, which levels issues of organizational and symbolic autonomy: how are the members selected? What is their status? What means are made available to the committee, in terms of budget, space, staff? What level of autonomy does the committee have in defining its subjects of inquiry and its stand? To what extent can it publicize its stands? What is its influence on the department of Labor, and possibly on other departments? Second, I will analyze the nature of the subjects the committee chose to tackle over the years, showing how it gradually extended its official mission beyond the question of women’s labor, raising much broader issues regarding women’s status in society. Third, I will study the discursive aspect of the stand taken by the committee, and analyze the strategic use of expertise and its articulation with political stakes. This will unable me to raise the issue of representation within state feminism, both in the political and in the cognitive sense of the term: how do governmental bodies in charge of women’s rights combine the promotion of feminist goals with the need to fit into traditional state discourse and expertise?

Finally, I will show that although this committee did not have much power and visibility, its experience contributes in explaining some key aspects of French state feminism, among which I will stress: the importance of the issue of labor equality in the way women’s rights are conceived in France, and the crucial role played by the interaction with the European level. (Show less)



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