This volume proposes to answer the question: what is new in French feminism at the beginning of the 21st century? The essays reflect the shift from the theoretical and philosophical approaches that characterized feminism in the 1980s to the more social and political questions of 2001.

This volume, a collection of essays by a number of high-profile personalities working in philosophy, literature, sociology, cinema, theatre, journalism and politics, covers a number of crucial developments in the field of French feminisms that have made a reassessment necessary. "Beyond French Feminisms" proposes to answer the question: what is new in French feminism at the beginning of the 21st century? The essays reflect the shift from the theoretical and philosophical approaches that characterized feminism in the 1980s to the more social and political questions of 2001. Topics include: the "parit?" and PACS debates, the France USA dialogue, the "multicultural" issues and the new trends in literature and film by women.

POLITICS AND SOCIETY - The Turning Point of Feminism: Against the Effacement of Women
S.Agacinski - Symbolic Violence
P.Bourdieu
- Exclusive Democracy: A French Paradigm
G.Fraisse - The Politics of PACs in a Transatlantic Mirror: Same-sex Unions and Sexual Difference in France
E.Fassin - The History of Women after the Law on Parity
C.Faure - The Headscarf and the Republic
F.Gaspard &
F.Khosrokhavar - The Feminization of Professional Names: A Crime of Lese-majesty
B.Groult - The Politics of Reproduction
J.Mossuz-Laveau - Sexualities on Parade
V.Nahoum-Grappe - New Gendered Mosaics: Their Mothers and the Gauls
M.Rosello - 'Parity' in Politics: From a Radical Idea to a Consensual Reform
M.Sineau - 'Les Chiennes de Garde:' Manifesto - ARTS AND LITERATURE - Unmasked!
H.Cixous - Francophone Women Writers in France in the Nineties
O.Cazenave - Body as Subject: Women Making Art
W.Chadwick - Marguerite's Nieces: Women's Novels at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century
C.Cusset - The Embrasure of the World: Women in Contemporary French Poetry
M.Etienne - Profile of a Filmmaker: C.Breillat &
A.Gillain - Women making Films in the 1990s
G.Sellier - FRANCE-USA - Debate. Women: A French Singularity? - The French Exception
E.Badinter - Mid-Life Memoirs and the Bicultural Dilemma
I.de Courtivron - Vive la difference
J.Scott - Counting the Days
M.Ozouf - Lacan and American Feminism: Who is the Analyst?
J.F.Gurewich - French Feminism: Made in America
C.Goldberg-Moses - The Symptom of 'American-style Feminism'
J.P.Mathy - Big Bad Wolf? A Short Chapter in the Long Story of Franco-American Relations
S.R.Suleiman