Feminism's Empire - by Carolyn J Eichner (Paperback)

About the Book

"Feminism's Empire investigates the entangled relationships between imperialism and feminisms in the late-nineteenth century, and the ways in which they influenced each other's development."--

Book Synopsis

Feminism's Empire investigates the complex relationships between imperialisms and feminisms in the late nineteenth century and demonstrates the challenge of conceptualizing "pro-imperialist" and "anti-imperialist" as binary positions. By intellectually and spatially tracing the era's first French feminists' engagement with empire, Carolyn J. Eichner explores how feminists opposed--yet employed--approaches to empire in writing, speaking, and publishing. In differing ways, they ultimately tied forms of imperialism to gender liberation.

Among the era's first anti-imperialists, French feminists were enmeshed in the hierarchies and epistemologies of empire. They likened their gender-based marginalization to imperialist oppressions. Imperialism and colonialism's gendered and sexualized racial hierarchies established categories of inclusion and exclusion that rested in both universalism and ideas of "nature" that presented colonized people with theoretical, yet impossible, paths to integration. Feminists faced similar barriers to full incorporation due to the gendered contradictions inherent in universalism. The system presumed citizenship to be male and thus positioned women as outsiders. Feminism's Empire connects this critical struggle to hierarchical power shifts in racial and national status that created uneasy linkages between French feminists and imperial authorities.

Review Quotes

Carolyn Eichner's Feminism's Empire is an intriguing plunge into late-nineteenth-century French feminism... Eichner's book pulls rich resources from the past and drops them into the midst of our contemporary political turmoil.

-- "Theory & Event"

Feminism's Empire effectively highlights the complexity of the question of feminism(s) among French activists and the varied ways these individuals combat gender binaries and inequity in the nineteenth century.... I consider Feminism's Empire to be an excellent exploration of the intricacy of both Frenchness and whiteness (as a system of domination and a societal construct) in French contexts.

--Jacqueline Couti "Global Nineteenth Century Studies"

The book is in dialogue with present decolonial concerns. Intersectionality is at the very heart of it, and Eichner deserves praise for her unpicking of the intricate and often jarring interplays of gender, class, race, and religion.... Feminism's Empire is an eloquent statement of the importance of centering women's thinking and experiences as an integral part of Third Republic political and intellectual life.

--Constance Bantman "Global Nineteenth Century Studies"

Carolyn Eichner's extensively researched and detailed Feminism's Empire contributes to making visible how French feminists approached France's domination of colonial others. Feminism's Empire a deeply researched and insightful study that pays careful attention to all the nuances, ambiguities, and occasional hypocrisies of feminist encounters with imperialism, and makes an original contribution to the study of global history as well as to the histories of feminism, imperialism, and gender.

-- "H-France"

About the Author

Carolyn J. Eichner teaches History and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is the author of Surmounting the Barricades and The Paris Commune. Follow her on X @EichnerCarolyn.