Women in Politics in Historical and Gender Perspective: from France to Guinea (1789-1958)

Resumen

The French revolution of 1789 led to the development of new political systems, based on democracy, which expanded worldwide. For the conference which took place in Aligarh in February 2012, participants were encouraged to study the extent of women’s participation in the political structure had been effective under different political systems. As a European historian of early-modern times, I have always been looking
for women in the archives and trying to trace them along their life course and to reconstruct their mentality and specific agency on society. I had to make a choice for this study, as a female historian, looking for women in politics in the past. I decided to explore the question in two directions.
My first part will explore the presence and actions, in early modern France, of women related to French Revolution movements. The second part will concern the degree of political participation of women of the French Empire, under the French colonial constitution (Code de ndigénat), focusing on French West Africa. I selected, as a case study,
what happened in Guinea during the mid-20th century, when women played an important and unique political role in this new African independent and socialist state.