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The New Woman & Fin-de-Siècle France Mary Louise Roberts. Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-de-SiÃcle France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. xii + 253 pp. $35.00
FOR Les Femmes Nouvelles peopling Mary Roberts's turn-ofthe- century Paris, the battle against restrictive ideologies of womanhood was waged with subtle, subversive manoeuvres; performance was their weapon of choice. Indeed the subject of this lively monograph could be deemed New Women of the nouvelle vague. Unlike their more aggressive Anglo-American or French socialist sisters, these women mimicked conventional behaviours and traits of femininity to increase access to public domains and, as a result, highlighted gender identity as an artificial and performative ideological construct rather than a natural essence implying a fixed destiny.
Roberts's impressively researched analysis focuses on an interlinked group of women in theatrical and journalism circles, all in some way connected to one newspaper. La Fronde (the sling-shot), founded by Marguerite Durand in 1897, was staffed entirely by women (aside from the night janitor). This David directly confronted the Goliath of the powerful patriarchal French press. The paper had its roots in the frondeur tradition of journalism that, from the seventeenth-century, gave voice to marginalized perspectives on serious issues. Nonetheless, it was intended as a wide-ranging "hard news" newspaper, not a feminist broadsheet. It reported serious political and economic stories, as well as giving stock market reports and racing news. The women associated with itÂ-from the journalists to the typesettersÂ-demonstrated all the capabilities and skills of their male counterparts but, argues Roberts, they also exploited traditional feminine discourse to new ends. Thus, as journalists they could effectively report women's experience with the hardnosed, persuasive objectivity of the male investigative reporter. Equally they could bring female charm, sensitivity and compassion to discussion of topical social issues and political debates, presenting radical perspectives in a disarming way.
The central figure in this informative study is Marguerite Durand. Roberts does not purport to uncover startling new...