THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE WESTERN

THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE WESTERN WORLD IN THE FRENCH PUBLIC RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICE Isabel Guglielmone Maître de Conférences Université de Technologie de Compiègne(France) www. utc. fr Isabel. Guglielmone@utc. fr 1

The History of Women in the Western World Duby G & Perrot M - Editions PLON 1992 • France Culture : My history of women by Michelle Perrot • France Inter: series Two thousand years of history - chapter The history of the work of women by Patrice Gelinet 2

The transmission of knowledge concerning history • where the principle of veracity is therefore a central issue • the aim of the present study is to provide a comparative description of these two radio broadcasts 3

We shall ask the following questions • What are the functions performed by M. Perrot and P. Gelinet as presenters of these radio broadcasts? • How is the audience taken into count? 4

We shall ask the following questions • What are the socio-discursive actions by which knowledge is transmitted? • In order to authenticate the veracity of this knowledge, what is the presence of “other” discourses and the forms of “dialogues” which are used? 5

We shall ask the following questions • How do history and fiction cross-fertilise and stabilise each other? 6

Methodology 1. The analysis of the formal linguistic and semiological traces in the opening sequences of the two programmes. 2. The notion of “emplotment” by the philosopher P. Ricœur 3. The socio-discursive sequences using the categories proposed by the linguist J. M. Adam. 7

Methodology 4. The forms of “dialogism” employed will serve to characterize the cultural and scientific references that are invoked to authenticate the veracity of the discourse. 5. Finally, this will lead us to characterize two ways of handling the classical radio situation, where there is an attempt to create a “rapport” with the listeners but where the public is physically absent. 8

The opening sequences of the programmes • France Culture: “My history of women: Michelle Perrot” pronounced in a neutral tone. • The use of the possessive adjectif “my”. 9

“My history of women”: • “This week, we will talk about the work of women” • the personal pronoun “we” is inclusive since it combines the “I” of the presenter and the “you” of the listeners • the “you” which prevails in the relation “me + you” = solidarity and proximity 10

France Inter: “Two thousand years of history”: • He addresses the listeners, who are manifestly dissociated from the “I/me” of the enunciation. • “Hello everybody, today with the historian Michelle Perrot: ‘The work of women’. ” 11

An argument of intellectual authority • “The French persuade women that they have no gifts, the better to relegate them to the subordinate ranks of housework” (Charles Fourier) 12

The following text is read by P. Gelinet • “Whereas women represent today close to half the working population in France, one forgets that parity is not equality, that women are often confined to subordinate tasks and that for equal work they remain less well paid than men. One forgets also that they often have a double workload and that in addition to their salaried job, if they have one, they have not been relieved of the housework to which they have always been relegated. One forgets finally that well before entering the factories and the offices, women have always worked, without waiting for Simone de Beauvoir to see in work the main instrument of their liberation. ” 13

This assertion is reinforced by: • a triple accumulation • preceding it by the repeated use of the impersonal pronoun «one» • a generalisation which neutralizes the need for Gelinet to take responsibility for his assertion 14

The events of the emplotment • the human condition faced with the dimensions of cosmic time • “ time becomes human to the extent that it is articulated through a narrative mode, and narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a condition of temporal existence” (Ricœur 1984: 52) 15

My history of women • the narration is presented as a journey from immobility to movement, and from silence to speech • the events which configure the development of the story are external in nature • these events attributed to socio-economic conditions: industrialization, and the two World Wars 16

From immobility to movement • situation of immobility: in the home, in the wash-house, taking care of the farmyard • travel, the train and the town engender movement which will lead to a final situation: salaried work 17

The passage from the silence of women, towards the final situation of speaking out • Marguerite Audoux, born 1863, shepherdess in Sologne as a child, seamstress in a workshop in Paris, who became the author of two realistic and autobiographical novels. 18

The passage from the silence of women, towards the final situation of speaking out • Nicole Notat is also cited: “daughter of Lorraine farmers, she was a school teacher before entering the CFDT “ (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail). 19

The events of the emplotment • In the France Inter programme Two thousand years of history, the event which constitutes the core of the story is also external but easier to handle from a journalistic point of view: the changes in the lives of women caused by the commercialisation and the use of domestic appliances. 20

The changes in the lives of women caused by the use of domestic appliances • he then presents a recording of the words spoken by a journalist at the inauguration of the Saloon of Domestic Arts at the Grand Palais in 1957 in Paris • ”just before airing it, this extract is described by Gelinet as “very sexist” 21

Schematic representations of the world • the conception of narrative sequences proposed by Jean Michel Adam • My history of women, narrative sequences are the predominant type • after the opening of the broadcast, once the listeners are assembled, Perrot uses the composite past tense 22

The story-teller Michelle Perrot • thus, the use of the composite past, the present, and • the future indicative may correspond to a call for an engagement, an incitation to close listening, which provokes the entry into the world that is being commented on By contrast, the imperfect tense, a sort of “Once upon a time…”, marks the entry into a sort of narration where the story-teller Michelle Perrot excels. 23

The descriptive sequences • the passages concerning life in the countryside contain descriptive sequences, manifested by operations which qualify persons (Adam 2005): “The peasant woman is a woman with a stoop” 24

Explaining through dialogue • the explanatory sequences are formed by two operators (Adam 2005): by a “why”, when a question is asked; by a “because” or equivalent conjunction, to introduce the corresponding answer 25

The interview characteristically presents explanatory sequences • employing interactions which are symmetrical in “ nature, based on equality and minimizing the difference between the speakers 26

“Dialogism” and the principle of veracity • the transmission of historical knowledge via the media is also dependent on the conditions of veracity; it is based on the backing provided by references coming from “other” sources • the notion of “dialogism” (Charaudeau & Mainguenau 2002) 27

Investigations, testimonies and fiction • Michelle Perrot makes use of the external voices of a multitude of narrators coming from two specific fields: historical investigation and literature 28

The domain of testimonies • M. Perrot evokes the memory of Agatha, “I still see her”, her great-grandmother from the Poitiers region 29

The domain of fiction • M. Perrot evokes: – Emile Zola a representative of the realist novels of the 19 th century – Georges Sand – Marguerite Audoux 30

The domain of investigation • a dozen precise references concerning authors and themes of research 31

Recorded sources • Patrice Gelinet cites from documents in the audiovisual archives concerning current events and from creations of the cinema and record industries 32

The actual selection of extracts • reinforces the openly partisan position of Gelinet who denounces the inequality of the condition of women, as already indicated at the opening of the broadcast 33

Gatherings and the Radio Tribune a) the narrative-descriptive assertions of My history of women b) the explicative-argumentative assertions of Two thousand years of history 34

The inventory of a large number of spatio-temporal shifters • has provided the necessary information to assert that in both of these programmes, the world is presented on the basis of an entrypoint for commentary, with the open intervention of Perrot and Gelinet who do not efface their presence by hiding behind events 35

The situations of the two radio programmes are distinctly different • Perrot performs the entire narration of My history of women, combining the roles of actor, witness and mediator 36

A Radio Gathering • using a “we” that is inclusive and unlimited, the broadcasts are “radio gatherings”, where during the time the programme is on the air the listeners are part of that “spiritual” collective called the public, formed by individuals who are separated physically but linked mentally (Tarde, 2007 edition) 37

Circular relation between history and fiction • the recourse to fictional characters in order to speak of history, and theatrical nature of certain scenes, testify to the circular relation between history and fiction because both can be told “as if it had really happened”. (Ricœur 1985) 38

Circular relation between history and fiction • conversely, the fictionalising of history offers the metaphoric possibility of “imagining that”, and seeing perfectly real events “as if” they were fictional (Ricœur op. cit 185) 39

A «radio tribune» • Patrice Gelinet takes sides right from the start in defence of the condition of women , • argument and explanation are the expository strategies employed, with the support of recorded extracts to assist the demonstrations 40

A «radio tribune» • the public is represented by a “you” detached from the first person of the speaker, but which remains an alter-ego with whom Gelinet wishes to share his point of view in order to transmit knowledge • installed in his “radio tribune” and with a view to demonstrate the inequality of the situation of women 41

Michelle Perrot • in her condition as a woman, and moreover a historian and protagonist of the French feminist movement in the 1970’s, she maintains her reserve and has a much less reactive posture 42

Patrice Gelinet • Gelinet, as a journalist, announces with precise figures that in France, at the present time, the wages of women are less than those of men, that unemployment and precariousness are more prevalent in the female population; Gelinet and Perrot agree that, for the equality of women, “there is still a lot to be done”. 43

Radio will never itself be, or try to imitate, a traditional classroom • the “radio tribunes” and the “gatherings” may . correspond, in a non-determinate manner, to the essential characteristics of the two stations 44

In face of the technological and economic mutations • in a panorama of radio broadcasting which is hyper-competitive, and which is currently under way, public service radio will have to invent new modes of relating to knowledge and the place for the listeners 45

Bibliography • Adam J. M. La linguistique textuelle : Introduction à l’analyse textuelle des discours • • • • Armand Collin 2005 Benveniste E. Problèmes de linguistique générale 1 Gallimard 1966 Charaudeau P. , Mainguenau D. Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Seuil 2002 Charaudeau P. El discurso de la información Gedisa 2003 Debout-Oleszkiewicz S. Utopie et contre-utopie : les femmes dans l’œuvre de Fourier in Encyclopédie politique et historique des femmes. PUF 1998 Duby G. Perrot M. Histoire des femmes en Occident, Plon 1992 Jakobson R. Essais de linguistique générale. Minuit 1963 Moirand S. Formes discursives de la diffusion des savoirs dans les médias in Hermès N° 21 1997 Moirand S. Du traitement différent de l’intertexte selon les genres convoqués. Semen, 13, Presses Universitaires de France-Compté 2001 Perrot M. Mon histoire des femmes. Seuil France Culture 2006 Ricœur P. Time and narrative Volume 1. The University of Chicago 1984 Ricœur P. Time and narrative Volume 3. The University of Chicago 1988 Tarde G. L’opinion et la foule. Editions du Sandre 2007, after the edition F. Alcan 1901 Voirol M. Le guide de la rédaction. Guides du CFPJ N° 3. 2006 Watzlawick P. Helmick Beavin J, Jackson D. Une logique de la communication. Seuil 1972. 46

Thank you. Any questions? 47