French Feminist Movements: History, Politics and Theory

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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The Mouvement de Libération des femmes (MLF) [Women’s Liberation Movement], which emerged from the events of May 68, was not the first manifestation of French feminism. Maité Albistur and Daniel Armogathe’s history of French feminism devotes only one of its 25 chapters to the post-1968 period, and when Simone de Beauvoir wrote the introductory sentences to

The Second Sex

in 1949, she stated that “The subject [. . . ] is not new. Enough ink has been spilt in quarrelling over feminism, and perhaps we should say no more about it.” However, the MLF of the 1970s was a particularly vibrant expression of feminism, and, despite the excellent work of feminist historians since then, which has shown continuities with earlier (and later) versions, those involved believed that this was…

3736 words

Citation: Allwood, Gill. "French Feminist Movements: History, Politics and Theory". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=13889, accessed 19 March 2024.]

13889 French Feminist Movements: History, Politics and Theory 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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