Longtemps durant… le Genre ne fut pas un genre français sinon qu’il était du genre masculin… E pur si muove

Abstract

In France – where everything is based upon a feminine or a masculine grammatical gender – the inability to grasp the concept of “Gender Studies” that was driven by the North-American feminists was long-lasting, and widespread among the social sciences. The current, new meaning of the term 'gender' was difficult to introduce because the word “gender” was used in other ways. French feminism was always moderate, and it didn’t concern the sex of people. Nevertheless, in spite of recent clarification and current acceptance of the term, gender archaeology in the true sense still is not very developed in France. This is a question of French history and French sociology. Ever since the Salons of the 18th century, the gender difference between masculine and feminine was only one difference among many others, and a minor one with respect to other differences in status. There never was any question of excluding women; efforts were rather directed at uniting them with men in one community, with shared citizenship and a real education for everyone. But we had to wait until the 1990’s and the institutionalization of archaeology in France to see co-professionalization in the French archaeological world.

Keywords

• gender
• women-men relationships
• feminine-masculine
• France