Becoming (M)other: Reflectivity in Le Journal des Demoiselles

Abstract

This article explores the complex positioning of Jeanne-Justine Fouqueau de Pussy (J.J.), editor-in-chief and columnist for the long-running Journal des Demoiselles (1833–96), vis-à-vis the dominant ideology of the feminine in nineteenth-century France. From 1833 to her retirement in 1853, J.J., a self-supporting and mature divorcée living alone, presented herself as a jeune fille who lived at home with her parents and corresponded about the latest fashions and trends with an anonymous and imaginary reader. This article argues that, in spite of the journal’s markedly conservative tenor as a vehicle for promoting respectable femininity and its explicit aim to prepare young girls for bourgeois marriage, the columns of its principal spokeswoman can be read as the expression of an alternative agenda centred in female sociability and autonomy. Analysing fashion plates and sewing patterns alongside sample columns from the twenty-year span of J.J.’s ‘Correspondance’, the article traces the idea of literal and figurative ‘reflectivity’ to investigate J.J.’s mixing of surface and subtextual messages.