Research Head: Nicolas Boileau (Lecturer)
Members: Nicolas Boileau (Lecturer), Marc-Calvini-Lefebvre (Lecturer), Claire Sorin (Lecturer)
Partnerships :
GIS, French Gender Institute
GENDER-Med network,
http://www.mmsh.univ-aix.fr/program/Pages/thematiques/gendermed.aspx
Gender, Women, Mediterranean (GeFeM) seminar of the TELEMME research laboratory
Men-Women Equality Mission (AMU)
This project was the recipient of a “pépinière d’excellence” (Incubator of Excellence) award (A*MIDEX) in 2017.
Presentation
This project examines how the feminist movement has been the target of attacks and oppositions from women themselves. Specialists of the ‘first wave’ of British-American feminisms propose to explore the genealogy of these hostile or ambiguous relations that women maintain with feminism in the transatlantic area, starting from the analysis of the crucial 1830-1930 period. The purpose will be to study the multifaceted aspect of female resistance to feminism from a historical, cultural, and political viewpoint, but also through its literary and artistic representations. The first year of the project began with a conference cycle looking at the various modalities of female resistances to feminism. As this question is less documented than male or political oppositions to feminism, and since it has been tackled only in a peripheral manner in studies focusing on the feminist movement(s), it is a pre-requisite to draw up a review of the tools forged to reflect upon these resistances and to identify the stumbling blocks. A research day and seminar programme were then devoted to the definition(s) of feminism which are at play in these resistances (2017-2018), before their historicization and the origins or causes of these resistances were tackled (2019-2020). We are now taking a closer interest in what has been identified as one of the impulses of this female opposition to feminism(s), namely the memorialization of this movement and the way a monolithic heritage is being built from a plural history. Research projects are currently underway regarding the sites of feminism, including memorial sites as well as cultural and theoretical tropes at the basis of the history of these movements.