From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Subject: M-FEM: Review of Joan Scott, _Only Paradoxes To Offer_ (fwd) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 12:49:48 -0500 (CDT) This message will probably not be of interest to all or most of the members of marxism-feminism, but it may be useful to some. It was forwarded to the list femecon-l, and I am forwarding to m-fem. Carrol Forwarded message: > From femecon-l-AT-bucknell.edu Mon May 19 12:31:54 1997 > Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 13:29:07 -0400 > From: Kevin Quinn <kquinn-AT-cba.bgsu.edu> > > Forwarded from another list-- > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > > Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 09:27:46 -0400 > Sender: H-Net Review Project Distribution List <H-REVIEW-AT-h-net.msu.edu> > From: H-Net Review Project <books-AT-h-net.msu.edu> > Subject: Schalk on Scott, _Only Paradoxes To Offer_ > > H-NET BOOK REVIEW > Published by H-France-AT-vm.cc.purdue.edu (January, 1997) > > Joan Wallach Scott, _Only Paradoxes To Offer: French Feminists and > the Rights of Man_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, > 1996. xiii + 229 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $27.95 > (cloth), ISBN 0-674-63930-8. > > Reviewed for H-France by David L. Schalk, Vassar College > <schalk-AT-Vassar.edu> > > Those of us who have read and re-read, often assigned, and long > admired Joan Scott's prize-winning first book, _The Glassworkers of > Carmaux_ (Harvard University Press, 1974), may have been surprised > to see her carve out a reputation as a leading feminist historian. > One might have expected her to have become an eminent social > historian, probably focusing on the development of the modern > industrial labor force. I went back and checked the index of > _Glassworkers_, and there is only one woman listed, the early > socialist organizer, Paule Minck. Minck is cited strictly for her > political role in introducing socialism to Carmaux in 1882. Indeed, > the word "feminism" does not appear in the index of _Glassworkers_. > > Social history's loss is feminist history's gain, and Joan Scott has > given us a book of extraordinary brilliance and lucidity. It is > carefully structured, with a theoretical introduction, four > substantive case studies that move effortlessly back and forth > between theory and praxis, and an illuminating conclusion discussing > the condition of Frenchwomen and of French feminism since women > began to vote and to hold office in 1945 (though, and this is part > of the paradox, their parliamentary representation has always been > very small, even minuscule). > > This work is a model of theoretically informed scholarship, setting > up its arguments with clarity and concision. Scott has acquired an > amazing command of the most abstruse theory, a command that a > professional philosopher might well envy--and ought to imitate--in > that she makes complex theoretical points with such precision and > elegant simplicity that the layperson can follow her arguments > without difficulty. On several occasions after reading a > particularly succinct and luminously clear theoretical formulation, > I went to her footnotes to see what philosopher she was relying on > at that point in her argument, and found a reference to the > notoriously indecipherable Jacques Derrida! > > Joan Scott lays out the central paradox she is determined to examine > (but not resolve, since technically a paradox is unresolvable) so > concisely that I quote it here: > > Feminism was a protest against women's > political exclusion; its goal was to eliminate > 'sexual difference' in politics, but it had to make > its claims on behalf of 'woman' (who were > discursively produced through 'sexual difference'). > To the extent that it acted for 'women,' feminism > produced the 'sexual difference' it sought to > eliminate. This paradox-the need both to accept > and to refuse 'sexual difference'--was the > constitutive condition of feminism as a political > movement throughout its long history (pp. 3-4). > > On one level Scott's book is a history of nineteenth- and > twentieth-century French feminism, an always interesting, often > moving account of the efforts of a series of brilliant, energetic, > determined French women to acquire political rights. None of her > principal characters lived to see their primordial goal of suffrage > realized. Scott's most recent subject, Madeleine Pelletier, died in > 1939, five years before the Committee of National Liberation, then > based in Algiers, issued an ordinance enfranchising women. Hence one > of the key questions Scott addresses in her work (subsumed under the > generic or all-encompassing paradox discussed above), is to explain > the "repetitious quality of their Ythe feminists" actions" (p. 3). > > Joan Scott began her project with a study of Olympe de Gouges, who > in a statement of 1788--describing herself as a "woman who has only > paradoxes to offer and not problems easy to resolve"--provided Scott > with her marvelous title. As is well known, the elusive and > imaginative but obviously in the end deadly serious de Gouges paid > with her life in 1793 for her early feminist writing and political > action. Scott's discussion of de Gouges is subtly combined with a > concise articulation of the beginnings of feminism in France. After > completing her study of de Gouges, Scott decided to continue the > "deconstruction of the 'equality versus difference' opposition," and > "began to think about which other feminists... Yto" include in such > a book" (p. xii). > > I would have been fascinated to know a little more about Joan > Scott's thought processes, and why she made the choices she did. > After de Gouges, who is deservedly a central figure whom one could > not imagine ignoring, Scott decided to write about Jeanne Deroin, > Hubertine Auclert, and Madeleine Pelletier. Did she select these > three remarkable feminists because of the threads that join them? > Jeanne Deroin explicitly and consciously linked her political > activities in 1848 with Olympe de Gouges's campaign for women's > rights during the first Revolution and Republic. Hubertine Auclert > admired Deroin and wrote to her in London in 1886, where Deroin had > been living in exile since 1851. Pelletier in turn was involved with > Auclert, joining with the older woman in militant suffragist action, > invading polling places in 1908. I rather suspect that different > threads leading back to Olympe de Gouges and forward to the > twentieth century would be found with a different sequence of > feminists. > > Why, for example, did Joan Scott decide _not_ to write about Flora > Tristan, Louise Michel, and Maria Verone, to take another remarkable > and roughly synchronous trio? And if Joan Scott had picked my > alternative trio, could their private experience and public action > be "read" according to Scott's theoretical model, which works so > well for the case histories she selected? I rather think they > could, but would be most interested in Scott's view.. > > Joan Scott's concluding chapter, "Citizens but Not Individuals: The > Vote and After," helps us understand why Claude Servan-Schreiber > could claim in 1992 that essentially nothing had happened for women > since the granting of suffrage. Scott begins by listing a series of > reasons, each of them convincing, as to why the Free French > government in exile of General de Gaulle decided to enfranchise > women in 1944. I would simply add one reason to round out the > explanation. How could full civil rights be denied to those who had > shared in the trauma and pain of the Occupation and so willingly > joined the Resistance? Though the particular case I mention below > could not have been known when the decision to grant suffrage was > made, many others were. > > In Dijon on a comfortable stone school building on > the rue Condorcet (coincidentally the only Enlightenment figure who > was a feminist, a friend of Olympe de Gouges, and like her a victim > of the Terror), one may read the following plaque: > > _Lycee Marcelle Parde > > Honneur et Patrie > > A la memoire de Marcelle Parde > Directrice du Lycee (1935-1945) > Et de Simone Plessis sa Secretaire > Officiers des Forces Francaises Combattantes > Deportees en Allemagne et Mortes a Ravensbruck > (janvier 1945-mars 1945) > Un pays vit tant que ses enfants > sont prets a mourir pour lui._ > > I would hope that Joan Scott's marvelous book will soon be > translated into French, so that the current generation of students > at the Lycee Marcelle Parde, and many others, both men and women, > will have a better understanding of the "reasons for the > intractability of the dilemmas YFrench" feminists have confronted > and for the necessarily paradoxical responses to them they continue > to have" (p. 174). > > Copyright (c) 1997 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work > may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit > is given to the author and the list. For other permission, > please contact H-Net-AT-h-net.msu.edu. > > --- end forwarded text > > ********************************************* > Linda Lopez McAlister, Editor, HYPATIA; Listowner SWIP-L; Chair > Dept. of Women's Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa. > Tel. 813-974-0982/FAX 813-974-0336/mcaliste-AT-chuma.cas.usf.edu > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > NOTICE FOR JOURNALISTS AND RESEARCHERS: Please ask for written permission > from all direct participants before quoting any material posted on FEMECON-L. >
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