Abstract
Until recently, French women’s participation in the Resistance has remained a largely unexplored area of French history. The theoretical innovations of gender historians, such as Joan Wallach Scott, in the 1980s, proved vital in developing a conceptual framework of analysis which acknowledged the complex and changing positions of women in history. Such work influenced women historians in France, the USA and Britain who focused on gender relations in order to question assumptions about women and political activism in the Resistance.1 By looking at some non-literary forms of memory, such as recent French historiography, the rise of oral testimony and key ideological battles surrounding remembering the war years, it is possible to address the context in which women resisters produced their autobiographical texts in post-’68 France.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For a good discussion of gender relations as an important analytical framework for understanding women’s roles in the French Resistance, see Paula Schwartz, ‘Résistance et différence des sexes: bilan et perspectives’, Clio, 1 (1995) 67–88.
Paula Schwartz, ‘Redefining Resistance: Women’s Activism in Wartime France’, Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars M. Higonnet, J. Jensen, S. Michel and M. Collins Weitz (eds) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) pp.141–53, ibid., ‘Partisanes and Gender Politics in Vichy France’, French Historical Studies, 16 (Spring 1989) 126–51,
Dominique Veillon, ‘Elles étaient dans la Résistance’, Repères, 59 (May–June 1983) 9–12, ibid., ‘Résister au féminin’, Pénélope, 12 (Spring 1985) 87–91.
See H. R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
See Marianne Monestier, Elles étaient cent et mille (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1972),
Nicole Chatel, Des femmes dans la Résistance (Paris: Julliard, 1972), Les Femmes dans la Résistance, Union des femmes françaises (eds) (Paris: Editions Rocher, 1977),
Ania Francos, Il était des femmes dans la Résistance (Paris: Stock, 1978). All these texts date significantly from the 1970s when a social history of France was being developed.
See Margaret Collins Weitz, ‘As I Was Then: Women in the French Resistance’, Contemporary French Civilization, 10/1 (Fall/Winter 1986) 1–19.
See Célia Bertin, Les Femmes sous l’Occupation (Paris: Stock, 1993) pp.217–8.
For an analysis of French political culture and the obfuscation of women resisters, see Rita Thalmann, ‘L’oubli des femmes dans l’historiographie de la Résistance, Clio, 1 (1995) 21–35 and
Marie-France Brive, ‘Les Résistantes et la Résistance’, Clio, 1 (1995) 57–66.
Lise London, L’Echeveau du temps. La Mégère de la rue Daguerre (Paris: Stock, 1995). London was an influential figure in the Communist ‘comités féminins’ whose role it was to mobilize housewives against Vichy by harnessing their discontent at the domestic policies of the regime.
See Ennat Leger, Connaissezvous la cuisine de la Gestapo (Lyon: MB Composition, 1983),
Anne-Marie Bauer, Les Oubliés et les ignorés (Paris: Mercure de France, 1993) and importantly,
Lucie Aubrac, Ils partiront dans l’ivresse (Paris: Seuil, 1984) translated as Outwitting the Gestapo (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 1993). When discussing Aubrac’s text, I will quote from the English translation.
Madeleine Riffaud, On l’appelait Rainer (Paris: Stock, 1995) p.56.
See Janine Jugeau, ‘Les agents de liaison: infrastructure de la Résistance’ in Les Femmes dans la Résistance ed. by Union des femmes françaises, as well as Rita Thalmann, ‘L’oubli des femmes dans l’historiographie de la Résistance, Clio 1 (1995).
Emilienne Moreau, La Guerre buissonnière — une famille française dans la Résistance (Paris: Solar Editeur, 1970) p.221.
Brigitte Friang, Regardetoi qui meurs (Paris: Plon, 1989) p.78.
Cécile Ouzoulias Romagon, J’étais agent de liaison des FTPF (Paris: Editions Messidor, 1988) describes herself as a soldier of the Resistance and not as a heroine in the preface to her text,
while Elizabeth de Mirabel, La Liberté souffre violence (Paris: Plon, 1989) is told by her mentor that she ‘is a soldier and a soldier is a man who is always more or less alone’.(p.83)
Jeanne Bohec, La Plastiqueuse à bicyclette (Paris: Mercure de France, 1975) and
Anne-Marie Bauer, Les Oubliés et les ignorés (Paris: Mercure de France, 1993).
See Friang, Regardetoi qui meurs and Odette Fabius, Un lever de soleil sur le Mecklembourg (Paris: Albin Michel, 1986).
See Sidonie Smith, ‘Autobiographical Criticism and the Problematics of Gender’ in A Poetics of Women’s Autobiography — Marginality and Fictions of the Self (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
See Paula Schwartz, ‘Résistance et différence des sexes: bilan et perspectives’, Clio, 1 (1995) 78.
Annie Guéhanno, L’Epreuve (Paris: Grasset, 1968) pp.77–8.
Edith Thomas, Le Témoin compromis (Paris: Viviane Hamy, 1995).
Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History (New York: Routledge, 1992).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1998 Claire Gorrara
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gorrara, C. (1998). Resistance Voices: the Case of Lucie Aubrac. In: Women’s Representations of the Occupation in Post-’68 France. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26461-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26461-2_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-26463-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-26461-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)