Family Policy and Women’s Citizenship in Mitterrand’s France
Résumé
The relationship between an equal citizenship for women and
the social policy of welfare states has always been complicated. Are
women to be mothers for the nation or individuals with equal rights
and duties before the law and in practice? Will social policy facilitate
women's access to the two dimensions of the welfare state so central
to achieving autonomy: paid work and the capacity to form and maintain
an autonomous household?1 Or will social policy reinforce women's
dependency and unequal gender power? More generally, what
economic and political factors and conditions are likely to produce
choices among these alternatives that will generate an egalitarian citizenship? (...).