Consumers for the Nation: Women, Politics, and Consumer Organization in France, 1944-1965

Abstract

This article explores consumer organization and action as an avenue for women's social, political, and economic influence in postwar France. Historical treatments of women and politics in this period typically concentrate on the lack of a feminine presence in formal political organizations. Broadening our definition of "the political" to include public and political actions outside the traditional structures of republican citizenship creates a very different view of women in the postwar period. Women's, family, and consumer organizations worked to create a sphere for women's political action through the role of the "consumer for the nation"; the woman consumer who benefited family and nation through her consumer demands and purchases. While this role naturalized women's position in the home, the effectiveness of women's consumer demands also make necessary a revision of our understanding of women, politics, and the growth of consumer society in postwar France.