Karen Offen offers a magisterial reconstruction and analysis of the debates around relations between women and men, how they are constructed, and how they should be organized, that raged in France and its French-speaking neighbors from 1870 to 1920. The 'woman question' encompassed subjects from maternity and childbirth, and the upbringing and education of girls to marriage practices and property law, the organization of households, the distribution of work inside and outside the household, intimate sexual relations, religious beliefs and moral concerns, government-sanctioned prostitution, economic and political citizenship, and the politics of population growth. The book shows how the expansion of economic opportunities for women and the drop in the birth rate further exacerbated the debates over their status, roles, and possibilities. With the onset of the First World War, these debates were temporarily placed on hold, but they would be revived by 1916 and gain momentum during France's post-war recovery.

'No one has done more over the past forty years to establish women’s history in the scholarship of the French Third Republic than Karen Offen. Now, in Debating the Woman Question, we have her chef d’oeuvre. It was worth the wait: a deeply thought-out analysis of many sides of the 'woman question' from maternity through education to religion and economics. It is a must-read for anyone interested in modern France.'

Steven C. Hause - Professor Emeritus, Washington University, St. Louis and University of Missouri, St. Louis

'This is a brilliant reconstruction and analysis of eight decades of heated quarrels in which feminists, female as well as male, talked back to anti-feminists, contesting male authority, in France as well as in other francophone and neighboring countries. A fascinating wealth of sources, many of them unknown heretofore, inform and contextualize the analysis which leads up to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and will certainly arouse important scholarly debates.'

Gisela Bock - Freie Universität Berlin

'The work of a celebrated pioneer in the history of women, Karen Offen's much anticipated history of the woman question in France, is a deeply researched, erudite study of the multifaceted debates that engaged women and men across the political spectrum during the first fifty years of the Third Republic. A variety of topics emerged: the intelligence, nature, duties, rights, and other characteristics of women that qualified them for or disqualified them from full citizenship and public responsibility. The rich debate plus the engaging cast of characters should finally discredit the cliche that French women thinkers and activists were less evolved than feminist activists elsewhere. Given the widening interest in feminism today, Offen's incomparable scholarship is a foundational resource.'

Bonnie G. Smith - Rutgers University, New Jersey

‘It is difficult to convey how impressive Offen’s two books are, and this summary cannot do justice to them. There is no historian better versed in the intricacies of the women question in France and the breadth of the scholarship on display is breathtaking. Offen also writes beautifully. The prose is clear and lucid, and every chapter demonstrates the depth of her knowledge.’

Christine Adams Source: H-France

‘One finishes reading Offen’s books in deep gratitude for the monumental labor that she invested in writing them. Thanks to the author’s sustained, forthright pursuit of this new narrative in French history, many more topics now deserve further study … what elements of France’s specificity in the contested woman question contributed to the country’s slow, troubled modernization? What role, if any, did the debate have in France’s overseas territories where race and ethnicity were also at play, especially in the interwar period? Such queries naturally arise from Offen’s magisterial work, its shrewd insights and compelling detail …’

James Smith Allen - The Journal of Modern History