Gill Allwood

Prostitution debates in France

Prostitution has been high on the French political agenda since the late 1990s, but the way in which it has been framed as a policy issue has undergone a radical change since the elections of 2002. This article compares competing definitions of prostitution as a political issue under the Jospin (1997-2002) and Raffarin (2002-) governments. It examines the abolitionist lobby, which dominated the debates under Jospin, joining forces with womens policy agencies to place prostitution on the policy agenda as a form of violence towards women. It discusses the changes in prostitution policy since 2002, focusing on the criminalization of soliciting and the construction of prostitutes as part-victim, part-criminal. It argues that the reframing of prostitution as a law and order issue has harsh consequences for the women in prostitution, but particularly for migrant women, who can be deported for the new offence of passive soliciting.

French feminism: national and international perspectives

During the 1980s, the French media proclaimed the death of feminism, but although the 1970s womens movement had demobilised, feminists were still active in issue-specific groups, in academia, and within the institutions of the state. Paying careful attention to the difficulties associated with defining feminisms and national feminisms in particular, this article situates an analysis of French feminism since the 1980s in a context of growing international feminist dialogue and activism and a renewed debate about the meaning of feminism. It focuses on the question of separatism and on changing relations between theory and practice, asking how feminists can act for change and form effective coalitions with other movements. It argues that feminism is plural and often fragmented and diffuse. Feminism is shaped by local social, economic, political and cultural factors and by exchanges of people and ideas, and any analysis of feminist theory and activism needs to take these into account.

Gender and class in Britain and France

This article examines the treatment of womens oppression in feminist theory, focusing on the engagement of second wave feminists with the concept of class and its relation to gender. This examination is carried out with reference to British and French feminisms, identifying the main trends and shifts that have developed over the last 35 years and noting that while these are undoubtedly influenced by a particular national context they are also shaped by increasing European integration and social, political and cultural exchanges at a global level. The authors find evidence of a number of similarities in the questions that feminist theorists have asked in Britain and France but also demonstrate that there are significant differences. They conclude that areas of convergent theoretical interests will extend along with cross-border flows of peoples and information.

La violence à l’égard des femmes fondée sur le genre dans la France contemporaine: bilan de la politique relative aux violences conjugales et aux mariages forcés depuis la Convention d’Istanbul

Abstract In 2014, France ratified the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) and passed the Law for Equality between Women and Men to bring French law into line with it. The Law for Equality between Women and Men situates the fight against violence against women within a broader context of the need to address inequalities between women and men. This is not new at the international level, but it is new to France. When the structural, transformative understandings of violence against women found in international texts are translated into national laws, policy documents and implementation on the ground, they might challenge widespread ideas about gender relations, or they might be diluted in order to achieve consensus. To what extent has French violence against women policy moved into line with United Nations (UN) and Council of Europe initiatives which present violence against women as both a cause and a consequence of gendered power relations? Have internationally accepted concepts of gender and gender-based violence been incorporated into French policy debates and, if so, how? What implications, if any, does all this have for the continued struggle in France and elsewhere to eliminate violence against women?

Gender-based violence against women in contemporary France: domestic violence and forced marriage policy since the Istanbul Convention

Abstract In 2014, France ratified the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) and passed the Law for Equality between Women and Men to bring French law into line with it. The Law for Equality between Women and Men situates the fight against violence against women within a broader context of the need to address inequalities between women and men. This is not new at the international level, but it is new to France. When the structural, transformative understandings of violence against women found in international texts are translated into national laws, policy documents and implementation on the ground, they might challenge widespread ideas about gender relations, or they might be diluted in order to achieve consensus. To what extent has French violence against women policy moved into line with UN and Council of Europe initiatives which present violence against women as both a cause and a consequence of gendered power relations? Have internationally accepted concepts of gender and gender-based violence been incorporated into French policy debates and, if so, how? What implications, if any, does all this have for the continued struggle in France and elsewhere to eliminate violence against women?

Gender Parity Reform

The ‘parity law’, on women and men’s representation in political institutions, was passed by the National Assembly in 2000 and has since then been applied to all the relevant election types (legislative, senatorial, European, regional, cantonal, municipal) at national and subnational levels. A significant literature on parity has developed over the past eighteen years, focusing on the following themes: the history of the parity campaign/movement; the debates surrounding the adoption of parity; the implementation of the parity law; and the effects of parity law on political structures and processes (Agacinsky 2001; Allwood 1995; Allwood and Wadia 2000: 213–25; Amar 1999; Baudino 2005; Bereni 2007; Bird 2003; Delphy 1994,1 19952; Gaspard 2001; Gaspard et al. 1992; Krook 2007; Lepinard 2006; Martin 1998; Mossuz-Lavau 1998; Murray 2004, 2008; Opello 2006; Ramsey 2008; Scott 2005; Senac-Slawinsky 2008; Sineau 2008). Far more of the literature covers the first two themes mentioned above although recent work has concentrated on the last two. Given the constraints of space and the extensive literature on parity, it is not the intention, in this chapter, to examine all of the themes mentioned above. Instead, we will comment on parity law and progress made towards the goal of increasing women’s representation over the last decade; and give consideration to the question of ‘the completion of French democracy’ which figured as one of the main justifications for the law. A brief outline of the progress of women’s political representation in history is presented first.

The Islamic Headscarf ( hijab )

Controversy surrounding the wearing of the Islamic headscarf or hijab1 in French state schools dates back to September 1989.2 At the time, three schoolgirls of Maghrebi background were excluded from their local high school (College Gabriel Havez) in the town of Creil, by head teacher Ernest Cheniere, for failing to remove their headscarves while on school premises. Cheniere’s argument for excluding the girls rested on the safeguarding of secular, Republican principles (laicite)3 in state schools, as set down by the Ferry Laws of 1881–2, and the drive to clamp down on exemptions claimed by certain pupils and their families on grounds of religion. For instance, the desire of Jewish families to observe the Sabbath meant that some children absented themselves from school on Saturday mornings while a number of Muslim schoolgirls asked to be excused from physical and sex education classes. Cheniere’s action, followed by the intervention of certain immigrant associations and Islamic bodies and the subsequent failure to reach a compromise, sparked off a polemical debate across France which split representatives of the state, civil society institutions, intellectuals, clerics and political activists into two camps: for or against the removal of the Islamic headscarf in school. Rather than mirroring established social cleavages or left-right ideological differences, the split over the headscarf at school cut across social groups, party political lines and religious affiliations.

Women, Employment and Gender Equality Policy

Although women have made important advances in the labour market and the principle of equality between male and female workers has been established in the employment policies of successive French governments since 1946, gender inequalities in relation to rates and patterns of economic activity, salaries, job status, career advancement and work-time issues persist. A snapshot of female employment based on figures provided by the French Ministry of Employment, Social Relations and Solidarity shows that women workers are present in only 10 occupational clusters out of 86; they are amongst the lowest paid in the workforce; they are more likely to find themselves unemployed than men; they represent 80 per cent of the 3.2 million workers paid below the minimum wage; and they constitute 81 per cent of the part-time workforce (Ministere du Travail, des Relations Sociales et de la Solidarite 2007). However, it is not the intention, in this chapter, to explain the social relations and processes which give rise to such inequalities as such accounts have been provided elsewhere by scholars in France and the UK (see, for example, Cockburn 1991; Daune-Richard and Devreux 1992; Delphy 1998; Hirata and Rogerat 1988; Kergoat 1982, 1998, 2005; Windebank 1994; Windebank and Gregory 2000).

Book Reviews and Short Notices

This is a brief overview of current knowledge about women and politics in France. It synthesises a number of sources and provides a useful introduction to the area, particularly for those with no prior knowledge. However, its bibliography is limited and in this respect the book does not fulfil one of the most useful roles of introductory texts, which is to direct the reader to the research-led publications that will provide more depth on particular issues. The rather ambitious introduction sets out a broad understanding of politics, which encompasses social movements and civil society organisations as well as mainstream political institutions. Although the chapters which follow do engage broadly with forms of participation outside mainstream institutions, as well as with the relation between social movements, associations and the state, the arguments surrounding these issues are left rather under-developed. In addition, many assumptions that have been ‘unpicked’ in women and politics work over the last twenty years are either left unchallenged, or discussed in the introduction but then used unproblematically in the main chapters. This book aims to present a comprehensive overview of mainstream and alternative forms of participation. It asks why women are still under-represented in French politics, whether women do politics differently, and whether their presence in sites of political decisionmaking would produce laws that would improve women’s lives. The authors identify a ‘double exception française’ (p. 6) – the under-representation of women in politics and the measures introduced to address it. They also find evidence of French specificity in three areas that they describe as particularly original and paradoxical: the century between male and universal suffrage; the relation between French feminists and politics; and the severe under-representation of women in Parliament. The authors point out that in 2006, women constituted only 12.1% of the National Assembly and occupied 84th position in world league tables. In an effort to explain this apparent contradiction, given the existence of parity laws, they summarise some of the main explanations that have been offered by political scientists, sociologists, historians and philosophers.