Feminism and Pacifism: The French Connection

Brion's political activity and devotion to feminism was particularly intense, but other teachers, like Marie Guillot, Marie Guerin and Marthe Bigot, also worked throughout the war for the same organizations and causes. This paper, concentrating primarily on women teachers in France but with examples of other women active in the anti-war movement, will indicate how, for all these women, there was no separation between the politics of feminism, the pacifist movement and the politics of the working class. In 1903, Marie Guillot, a teacher from Lorraine, founded the first Groupe Feministe Universitaire, to struggle against the laws, mores and poor education which have for centuries kept women in a state of dependence and inferiority. While the women's groups were forming, teachers of both sexes who wanted to improve their working conditions were establishing organizations which would enable them to fight for the economic and social justice they demanded from their employer, the French state.