How many women members were there in the French socialist movement of the Third Republic? I believe that women constituted roughly 2 to 3 per cent of the total membership, perhaps somewhat more in Paris. This figure is suggested by the rare objective data. Applied to the total party membership, it gives results which are borne out by witnesses and supported by my own impressions from the contemporary press.

Three objective data apply. First, Claude Willard, in his monumental study Les Guesdistes, was able to obtain nominal lists for a sample of one-sixth of the membership of the POF. In this sample, he counted twenty women in the period 1891–3 (which corresponded to 3 per cent of the sample) and fifty-three in the period 1894–9 (which corresponded to 2 per cent, but ‘this proportion probably understates the reality’). In both cases approximately half the, women members were wives or daughters of male militants. Willard believes that his sample was representative and therefore that it is reasonable to suppose that the proportion would hold true for the POF as a whole. Second, the number of women delegates at SFIO congresses before the First World War ranged from a high of ten (out of 225 at Limoges, 1906) to a low of one (out of 215 at Amiens, 1914), for an average of 5.27 women delegates per congress, or roughly 2.25 per cent. In nearly every congress where several women attended, half to two-thirds of them were the wives of male delegates.