Catholic Women, International Engagement and the Battle for Suffrage in Interwar France: the case of the Action Sociale de la Femme and the Union Nationale pour le Vote des Femmes

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the feminist activism of two French Catholic women's organisations, the Action Sociale de la Femme (ASF) and the Union Nationale pour le vote des Femmes (UNVF), in the aftermath of the First World War. It reveals the interconnectedness of French Catholic women's national and international work by examining their demands for political rights, their promotion of higher education for women and their campaign for women's equal access to jobs. In the post-World War I years, Catholic women leaders from the ASF and the UNVF argued that women needed rights, not male protection, and that women were uniquely qualified to lead France into a more powerful, peaceful future. As a result, the ASF and UNVF offered Catholic women serious encouragement for choices other than motherhood that few other sources provided in the interwar years.