Bereni Laure, 2015, La bataille de la parité. Mobilisations pour la féminisation du pouvoir , Paris, Economica, études politiques, 300 p.

Abstract

Bereni Laure, 2015, La bataille de la parite. Mobilisations pour la feminisation du pouvoir [The fight for political parity: mobilizing for feminization of power], Paris, Economica, Etudes politiques, 300 p.Based on a doctoral thesis defended in 2007, this book contributes to both history of feminism and women's political history. Its subject - 1990s mobilizations for political parity in France - precision with which it was written, and wide range of questions it discusses will it of interest to sociologists of public policy as well as specialists of gender, mobilizations and political activism. Grounded in a multimodal socio-historical survey that combines interviews, questionnaires and archive study, book covers period from 1992 to 2000 in primarily chronological order.The author begins by presenting success of parity as an enigma to be resolved: How, after a long period of lethargy in French feminist movement, did a handful of not particularly unified feminist activists manage to obtain - in one short decade - a revision of constitution and passage of a bill that seemed unimaginable in late 1980s? To answer this question, Laure Bereni forges an original analytic category scope of which exceeds framework of her study. On model of Lilian Mathieu's concept of the space of social movements, she creates the space of women's cause, defined as the configuration of sites for mobilization for and in name of women in a plurality of social spheres (p. 17). With this she can apprehend historicity of mobilizations for political parity, their extension and their ideological and sector-based heterogeneity, integrating initiatives by political parties, trade unions, state structures, religious institutions or associations and intellectual milieu in addition to specifically feminist mobilizations.Bereni's study in first three chapters of emergence and gradual enlargement of movement for political parity immediately demonstrates heuristic value of her concept of space of women's cause. Pro-parity initiatives were hardly restricted to feminist circles that developed in 1970s. From as early as 1992 they arose in quite different spheres: regions (the Femmes d'Alsace [Women of Alsace] electoral list); feminist intellectual milieu (publication of Au pouvoir, citoyennes! Liberte, Egalite, Parite [Onward to power, women citizens! Liberty, Equality, Parity]); European Commission (Athens Conference); and others. Despite their small numbers and profound divisions that could already be discerned within movement, highly invested women activists were already trying to make a movement around a marginal cause within various structures. While fleeting Reseau femmes [Women's network] of 1993 failed to created a wide-ranging movement in favour of political parity, activists Gisele Halimi, Antoinette Fouque and Yvette Roudy, each of who launched initiatives at nearly same time, together with major women's associations established throughout twentieth century, managed, despite their differences, to bring issue to life politically.Chapters IV and V, among most interesting, offer a traditional analysis of activist careers and seem to suggest possibility of connecting analysis of social movements with analysis of political party activism. With her series of portraits of activists and intellectuals and related sociological information, author immerses reader in parity movement. …