Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part 1 Defining a feminine sphere of action, 1830-1914
- 1 Public roles for maternal authority: the introduction of inspectresses, 1830-1870
- 2 Educating a new democracy: school inspectresses and the Third Republic
- 3 Addressing crime, poverty, and depopulation: the Interior ministry inspectresses
- 4 Protecting women workers: the Labor administration
- Part 2 Steps toward equality: women's administrative careers since the First World War
- Select bibliography
- Index
2 - Educating a new democracy: school inspectresses and the Third Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part 1 Defining a feminine sphere of action, 1830-1914
- 1 Public roles for maternal authority: the introduction of inspectresses, 1830-1870
- 2 Educating a new democracy: school inspectresses and the Third Republic
- 3 Addressing crime, poverty, and depopulation: the Interior ministry inspectresses
- 4 Protecting women workers: the Labor administration
- Part 2 Steps toward equality: women's administrative careers since the First World War
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Due to her womanly nature, she [the inspectress] can, without acting contrary to delicacy, without offending the modesty of women teachers and children, deal with the most intimate questions of education. She can do it and she should … because the inspector cannot …
Pauline Kergomard, “Les Femmes dans l'enseignement primaire” (1889)The gender-specific tasks assigned to the pioneering inspectresses remained predominant in their successors' duties during the Third Republic, but, as we shall see, the retention of the first corps of inspectresses and introduction of new inspectresses also provoked controversies between the 1870s and 1914. Created after the twin traumas of defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the subsequent upheaval of the Paris Commune, the Third Republic began with leaders as much preoccupied as predecessors by threats to the social order. Conservative, but not politically identical, tendencies characterized the Republic's first two presidents: Thiers, the former Orleanist who led the newly elected National Assembly from February 1871 to May 1873, and his monarchist successor, Marshal Patrice de MacMahon. After the Assembly finally completed new constitutional laws in 1875, the postwar monarchist majority collapsed, for republicans won control of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower legislative house, in 1876, and the October 1877 elections confirmed their majority in the wake of the Seize Mai (16 May) crisis, whereby MacMahon tried, and failed, to reassert monarchist control.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Rise of Professional Women in FranceGender and Public Administration since 1830, pp. 40 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000