04034nam 2200733Ia 450 991082226140332120200520144314.01-282-07018-597866120701810-226-72127-210.7208/9780226721279(CKB)1000000000396155(EBL)432287(OCoLC)368265682(SSID)ssj0000083961(PQKBManifestationID)11116395(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000083961(PQKBWorkID)10163298(PQKB)10440106(MiAaPQ)EBC432287(DE-B1597)535756(OCoLC)1097085992(DE-B1597)9780226721279(Au-PeEL)EBL432287(CaPaEBR)ebr10286153(CaONFJC)MIL207018(dli)HEB00495(MiU)MIU01000000000000003603019(EXLCZ)99100000000039615519930712d1994 uy 0engurnn#---|u||utxtccrCivilization without sexes reconstructing gender in postwar France, 1917-1927 /Mary Louise Roberts1st ed.Chicago University of Chicago Pressc19941 online resource (337 p.)Women in culture and societyOriginally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Brown University), 1990.0-226-72122-1 0-226-72121-3 Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-330) and index.Front matter --CONTENTS --FOREWORD --ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --Introduction. "THIS CIVILIZATION NO LONGER HAS SEXES" --PART ONE. LA FEMME MODERNE --PART TWO. LA MERE --PART THREE. LA FEMME SEULE --Conclusion. 'ARE WE WITNESSING THE BIRTH OF A NEW CIVILIZATION?' --Notes --IndexIn the raucous decade following World War I, newly blurred boundaries between male and female created fears among the French that theirs was becoming a civilization without sexes. This new gender confusion became a central metaphor for the War's impact on French culture and led to a marked increase in public debate concerning female identity and woman's proper role. Mary Louise Roberts examines how in these debates French society came to grips with the catastrophic horrors of the Great War. In sources as diverse as parliamentary records, newspaper articles, novels, medical texts, writings on sexology, and vocational literature, Roberts discovers a central question: how to come to terms with rapid economic, social, and cultural change and articulate a new order of social relationships. She examines the role of French trauma concerning the War in legislative efforts to ban propaganda for abortion and contraception, and explains anxieties about the decline of maternity by a crisis in gender relations that linked soldiery, virility, and paternity. Through these debates, Roberts locates the seeds of actual change. She shows how the willingness to entertain, or simply the need to condemn, nontraditional gender roles created an indecisiveness over female identity that ultimately subverted even the most conservative efforts to return to traditional gender roles and irrevocably altered the social organization of gender in postwar France.Women in culture and society.Sex roleFranceHistory20th centuryWomenFranceSocial conditionsWorld War, 1914-1918Social aspectsFranceWorld War, 1914-1918WomenFranceSex roleHistoryWomenSocial conditions.World War, 1914-1918Social aspectsWorld War, 1914-1918Women305.3/0944Roberts Mary Louise868130MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910822261403321Civilization without sexes1938023UNINA