Sisters or Citizens?

A century ago, just as today, working women faced oppression both as women and as workers. On which front would they fight? Were they sisters of the feminists, or citizens, members of the workers’ movement? This book is a study of their responses to this dilemma. The French feminist movement claimed to speak for working women as well as for their wealthier sisters. But by the end of the nineteenth century, most politically minded working women rejected feminism, which seemed to them a movement for middle-class women.