#20s france

“After World War I (1914-1918), sexual emancipation swept across France, despite the fact that French women were denied the right to vote and saw the imposition, in 1920, of a law curbing abortion and the distribution of birth-control information. The success of Victor Margueritte’s La Garçonne (The Bachelor Girl [1922]), which sold 300,000 copies within a year, reveals how greatly attitudes had changed in regard to women’s sexual freedom. Indeed, this novel portrayed the lesbian as the true liberated woman for the first time, linking economic independence, sexual liberty, and equality with men. Margueritte lost his membership in the Legion of Honor, while feminists, horrified by the "debauchery” and “vice” in his work, refused to support him. Thus, despite the relaxing of moral restrictions after the war, the loss of practically an entire male generation caused the government of the Third Republic, for obvious reasons, to reinforce its control over women and procreation. Women, including feminists, did not protest against the restrictions imposed on them. The accepted social norms allowed married women to engage in limited political activism; single women joined trade unions; and lesbians and liberated heterosexuals enjoyed access to cultural circles. Lesbians continued to have a real visibility within the cultural realm, as international artists inscribed lesbianism within the avant-garde.“

-Excerpt from Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures by Bonnie Zimmerman