CALM, WITH A GRAVE AND SERIOUS TEMPERAMENT, RATHER MALE - FRENCH MARXISM, GENDER AND FEMINISM, 1882-1905

This article argues that historians have underestimated the importance and complexity of Marxists' engagement with feminism during the intro duction of their doctrine into the French socialist movement before th e First World War. It examines the ideological discourse of the Parti Ouvrier Francais, the embodiment of Marxism in France from 1882 to 190 5, in order to reveal the ambiguities and contradictions of the French Marxists' approach to the ''woman question'' - seeking to explicate t he puzzling coincidence in the movement's rhetoric of a firmly feminis t commitment to women's rights with an equally intransigent hostility to organized feminism.