THE FIRST PART of this chapter looks at the key events affecting French women during the publication period covered by this book: from the approximate beginnings of the French women's press in 1758 to the advent of the Second Republic in 1848 – 90 years that constitute some of the most turbulent and eventful in the country's history, with numerous coups being staged and control being passed from one political faction to another. Adopting a feminocentric perspective, this chapter constructs a broadly sociopolitical and intellectual framework within which to position the women's journals under study. Such a framework is necessary both in order to contextualise the objectives and opinions these journals express and, relatedly, to assess their political or ‘feminist’ timbre. This is not to suggest that there exists an unproblematic reflection between the many mediatic constructions of womanhood put forward in the early women’s press – whether, as the respective chapters in this study demonstrate, these take the form of bibliophile, informed fashion consumer, wife and mother, or worker – and the extratextual ‘reality’ they represent. Rather, by providing supplementary ‘background’ information on French women's rights and roles throughout the decades in question, this chapter seeks to elucidate further the dialogue promoted in the early women's press between journalistic text and reader, and to substantiate the textual readings around which Figurations of the Feminine centres.

The second part focuses on the development of the French women's press and the changing publishing climate in France during the same period. As this study highlights, these 90 years testify to the rise of the French female writer (whether author or journalist) as a cultural force whose participation in intellectual discussions was increasingly that of active agent, rather than passive recipient. In greater numbers than ever before, French women wrote their own history in the form of both literary and journalistic nouvelles. Through their work, these French writers sought to influence the national agenda on issues of prime importance for women – issues ranging from greater access to education to the right to divorce.