Project MUSE - The Risky Business of French Feminism: Publishing, Politics and Artistry</i (original) (raw)

Reviewed by:

The Risky Business of French Feminism: Publishing, Politics and Artistry. By Jennifer L. Sweatman. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. 217 pp.

Jennifer Sweatman’s timely assessment of women’s publishing, with its main focus on the publisher Éditions des femmes, narrowly postdates the decease of the key figure concerned — Antoinette Fouque. Charting the evolution and symbiosis of the Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF) with the publishing house, founded in 1973, and the group Psych & Po, is the considerable challenge of Sweatman’s project. This somewhat partial analysis interprets the complex differences of stance as Éditions des femmes became recognized as a publishing force to be reckoned with, but was seen by militants to have reneged on the collective, independent ethos of the post-1968 women’s movements as it became absorbed into the mainstream, ‘masculist’ world of publishing. Sweatman bases her account on three perceived overarching elements of risk for Éditions des femmes: the political risk of the female collective that grew out of the MLF; the risk of the Psych & Po vision of Éditions des femmes; and the financial risk run by the editorial policy of ‘publishing women’. This is contextualized in relation to other women’s publishing houses also seeking viability, such as Éditions Tierce, now discontinued. Sweatman salutes the resolve of Éditions des femmes’s venture to challenge the phallocentric order and patriarchal world of publishing by liberating and promoting women’s language and writing, not solely in terms of écriture féminine, but also by providing a vehicle for voicing social issues such as rape or domestic violence. This assertive determination to be women-centred gained the house credibility and established a niche market and a loyal pool of women writers. For Sweatman this success was, however, mitigated by controversy including the operation of Éditions des femmes, its relations with its bookshops in Paris and Lyon, and the diminishing collective role of the MLF as the house became more established in the publishing world, for example its inevitable engagement with mainstream media exposure such as with the television programme Apostrophes. The author’s debatable focus on the financial risks taken by this publishing house are countered by her assessment of its response to shifts in writing and publishing via a range of initiatives: regular overhauls of their catalogue and collections; the enlisting of new authors; the innovative Bibliothèque des voix (recordings of women’s works by women celebrities); the bold but controversial commitment to translation of overseas women authors; and an increasing emphasis on création (Éditions des femmes published the three-volume Dictionnaire universel des créatrices in 2013). Such measures have ensured the house’s survival, reputation, and cachet. This volume’s Conclusion includes a broader contextualization of the position of women publishers in the world of French publishing generally as of the 1970s; this could usefully have figured in the Introduction. A comprehensive bibliography and index support what is an inevitably intricate account bearing witness to the tenacity, vision, and commitment of the founders and editors of Éditions des femmes. [End Page 570]

Maggie Allison

University of Bradford