Patriarchy, Protection, and Women’s Agency in Modern France

Collected to honor the work of French women’s history scholar Rachel G. Fuchs, the essays in this special issue reflect the methodologies and inquiries of her research. They touch on interrelated themes central to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France, including evolving forms of male power expressed through paternity, the victimization of women and children resulting from industrial capitalism and male abuse of power, and the development of mechanisms to protect the abused through surveillance of potential victims. The essays also extend beyond Fuchs’s work by presenting methodologies on previously unexplored topics such as imagining society without property and paternity rights, child sexual abuse, workshops run by nuns, Christian feminism’s critique of patriarchy, and trafficked women as migrant workers.

Contributors: Elinor Accampo, E. Claire Cage, Elisa Camiscioli, Venita Datta, Elizabeth Everton, Jean-Pierre Hérubel, Miranda Sachs, Ann Verjus