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To Further the Cause of Empire: Professional Women and the Negotiation of Gender Roles in French Third Republic Colonial Algeria, 1870-1900

Artino, Serene
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1342622253

Abstract Details

2012, MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History.
The ideology of Republican motherhood, a political philosophy that equated patriotism with gendered social constructions of womanhood, within the early years of the French Third Republic, influenced the implementation of state mandated girls’ education in the metropole. Expanding upon already existing gendered cultural constructions of womanhood and the social role of French women, politicians sought to promote the concept of Republican motherhood in the textbooks of school girls to prepare them for their future role as mothers of strong and loyal French citizens. The ideology of patriotic womanhood, under the Third Republican government, was not only a guiding principle for domestic policy, but was also intrinsic to French colonial policy in Algeria. Through the use of a common nineteenth-century European practice known as woman-to-woman medical care, Dr. Dorothée Chellier, a female physicians under the auspice of the colonial government provided medical care to indigenous women in Algeria. Chellier published multiple written accounts of her medical advocacy for indigenous women’s health care and her account clearly demonstrates that the ideology of Republican motherhood was a factor in her participation in the medical missions as well as an important facet within the Republican government’s policy of assimilating the indigenous population of Algeria by catering to the women within the Berber tribes and predicting that they would not only personally recognize the benefice of French medical care, but pass on these beliefs to their children. Chellier and the Algerian colonial governor sought to assimilate the indigenous population to French social and economic frameworks, but also to ameliorate the fractious environment between the European colonial settlers, indigenous groups, and the French military. Thus, Republican motherhood was a framework used in the metropole and in the colonial context by Republican politicians who sought to harness the power of a mother’s influence on her children as a method for social coherence and adherence to government policies.
Rebecca Pulju, PhD (Advisor)
90 p.
European History
France; women; Algeria; colonial; Dorothee Chellier; Republican motherhood; Third Republic; medicine; colonial medicine; female physicians; gynecological healthcare; assimilation; 19th century; nineteenth-century; cultural history; political culture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Artino, S. (2012). To Further the Cause of Empire: Professional Women and the Negotiation of Gender Roles in French Third Republic Colonial Algeria, 1870-1900 [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1342622253

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Artino, Serene. To Further the Cause of Empire: Professional Women and the Negotiation of Gender Roles in French Third Republic Colonial Algeria, 1870-1900. 2012. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1342622253.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Artino, Serene. "To Further the Cause of Empire: Professional Women and the Negotiation of Gender Roles in French Third Republic Colonial Algeria, 1870-1900." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1342622253

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.