Ebook: Women, Work, and the French State: Labour Protection and Social Patriarchy, 1879-1919

In France, during the 1880s and 1890s, the protection of women and girls in the workplace was advocated by sociologists, social economists, union leaders, enlightened industrialists, and politicians of virtually every ideological hue. In response, laws were enacted restricting not only the number of hours and the time of day that women could work but also their access to dangerous trades. Mary Lynn Stewart argues that these restrictions, though initiated to protect women and girls, were actually a method of exploiting women's dual role of short-time wage worker and unpaid housewife and mother.