Trailblazers and troublemakers: women who made French history
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Why have women so often been relegated to footnotes in French history? In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Catherine Pangonis, whose latest book is A History of France in 21 Women, tells Charlotte Vosper about the female trailblazers and troublemakers, whose role in the nation's past has not perhaps been fully appreciated. In your book, you tell the history of France through the lives of 21 women. Why did you choose these women? Yeah, it was actually quite a journey to choose the women for this book.
So I had this idea that I wanted to revisit French history, looking at it through the lives of women, not who were necessarily the most famous, but who, through an exploration of their lives, you could explore pivotal moments of change in French history. So I wanted to pick a woman whose experiences encapsulated or shed new light on the Enlightenment or on the French Revolution, events that we think we know very well, but usually through very male-centric lenses. And there's a good reason for the male-centric lenses is that it was a deeply patriarchal society, it was deeply unequal, there were fewer opportunities for women. So men, you know, more often than not were occupying positions of power and better positioned to be change makers.
But that doesn't actually mean that women were not in these roles as well and that certain women's lives and experience did not shape French history. And I just don't think it's emphasized enough. So that was what led me to the book. And that was the key mission in mind when selecting the women that I included in this book. So I chose a lampe de gouge for the revolution.
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