Books & ideas

The discreet power of ambassadors' wives

Carl Petersen — 2026-09-22T06:30:00Z

Despite being confined to diplomacy's backstage, ambassadors' wives were the invisible architects of France's prestige abroad. From social receptions to soft power, Isabelle Dasque examines two centuries of feminine influence.

Left behind by personal autonomy

Romain Philit — 2026-09-10T07:40:16Z

What are the emancipatory prospects for women excluded from salaried work? By analyzing working-class Maghrebin women's attitudes towards work, family, and heterosexuality, Fatma Çingi Kocadost shows the limits of individual emancipation through work.

One is not born, but becomes Black

Pascale Barthélémy — 2026-09-08T06:43:24Z

Black women—whether from the Caribbean, Africa, or of African descent—have conceptualized and embodied French citizenship. Their often hidden trajectories and struggles illustrate an alternative history of the nation, shaped by colonialism, when seen through the lenses of race, class, and gender.

Algorithms and the female silhouette

Hélène Bourdeloie & Solenne Carof — 2026-02-17T06:30:00Z

The female silhouette – understood as the body's visible form and socially perceived appearance – has long been shaped by social norms. In the age of social media, these norms are intensifying, prompting, in response, the rise of so-called “body-positive” movements.

Marilyn Monroe does not exist

Élisa Goudin — 2026-02-12T08:30:00Z

From Salomé to Lolita, representations of “temptresses” haunt male fantasies. They entail a woman who has said “yes” before she has even been asked anything. And women who “fire up” men's desire must pay the price.

The Joys and Miseries of Marriage

Céline Surprenant — 2025-07-15T12:34:39Z

The “double life” of the great English novelist George Eliot combines the literary field with the experience of marriage. Her works form the crucible for reflections on love, social norms and freedom.

The Earth Mother vs. God the Father

Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod — 2025-06-26T06:30:00Z

Christianity is based on an egalitarian indifference to sexual difference, but in practice treats women very unequally. God the father has replaced the pagan idea of the Earth Mother, who celebrates humanity's shared belonging to Gaia.

Female, French, Arab

Mariem Guellouz — 2024-12-10T07:30:00Z

How have French women of Arab and North African descent become the subject of a collective fantasy? If the language of immigration reveals collective imaginaries and social and discursive practices that are worth analyzing, then the word beurette also deserves our attention.

Africanist

Elara Bertho — 2024-01-16T11:08:00Z

In her memoir, the renowned French researcher Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch looks back on her Jewish childhood, her first experience of Africa in the 1960s, the neo-colonialist stance of some academics, and her intellectual and political career, in which anti-racism has played a pivotal role.

Becoming respectable

Béatrice Bouillon — 2024-01-02T08:00:00Z

How do working-class and lower middle-class women experience their youth in rural environments? Based on a study of several rural and exurban spaces, Yaelle Amsellem-Mainguy revisits the question of women's social trajectories.