When the great historian Michelle Perrot tells how she became a feminist

The end-of-year Christmas holidays can sometimes rhyme with deadly boredom. Hang out, to miss I highly recommend the recent episode dedicated to Michelle Perrot, of the program “Le Cours de l’histoire” by France Culture, presented by Xavier Mauduit and of the series “Souvenirs d’histoirenes et d’histoires”.

Who is Michelle Perrot, historian specializing in women’s history?

Born in 1928 and still very much alive, Michelle Perrot is a historian, specialist in women’s history, professor emeritus of contemporary history at Paris Cité University. She, the daughter of a father marked by the First World War, knows the Second firsthand. She became close to the Communist Party during her history studies at the Sorbonne and completed a doctoral thesis on 19th century workers’ strikes. In the wake of May 1968, she co-founded a feminist studies group and she also co-created a women’s history course at the university in 1973, articulating issues of gender and social class. Since then you have written and edited numerous works on the history of women in the West. Then it was released in January 2023 The time of feminism which she co-wrote with Eduardo Castillo as an intimate and theoretical, autobiographical and historical essay, Michelle Perrot clearly has a lot to say, and it is a pleasure to listen to her speak directly.

Something to keep you busy during the end-of-year holiday season, perfect for taking stock of how far you’ve come and what remains to be accomplished.

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