Justine Zeller

Thesis in History

defended on September 25, 2020

Development of MLF and a space of women's struggle in Midi-Pyrénées : regional specificities and national or international exchanges under the supervision of Sylvie Chaperon

Abstract

The Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) is an autonomous, single-sex feminist movement whose first media appearance (wreath-laying for the wife of the Unknown Soldier) took place in Paris on August 26, 1970. Following in its footsteps, movements sprang up all over France, including in the Midi-Pyrénées region.

The cities of Toulouse and Tarbes are the focus of this thesis. Based on archival research and numerous oral interviews, the aim is to work on the interplay of scales (local, regional, national and international) in order to carry out a localized and regionalized, comparative and generalized study of the women's movement. The regional approach is favored. Rarely considered in historiography, it highlights intermediary activist networks at local and national levels.

Analysing the spread of feminism beyond the movement's borders, in a plurality of social spheres, this thesis considers the genesis of a space for the women's cause, whose poles (academic and state, in particular) are examined jointly and then separately from the MLF.