{"product_id":"disruptive-acts-mary-louise-roberts-9780226721255","title":"Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-de-Siecle France","description":"In fin-de-siècle France, politics were in an uproar, and gender roles blurred as never before. Into this maelstrom stepped the \"new women,\" a group of primarily urban, middle-class French women who became the objects of intense public scrutiny. Some remained single, some entered nontraditional marriages, and some took up the professions of medicine and law, journalism and teaching. All of them challenged traditional notions of womanhood by living unconventional lives and doing supposedly \"masculine\" work outside the home. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Mary Louise Roberts examines a constellation of famous new women active in journalism and the theater, including Marguerite Durand, founder of the women's newspaper \u003ci\u003eLa Fronde\u003c\/i\u003e; the journalists Séverine and Gyp; and the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Roberts demonstrates how the tolerance for playacting in both these arenas allowed new women to stage acts that profoundly disrupted accepted gender roles. The existence of \u003ci\u003eLa Fronde\u003c\/i\u003e itself was such an act, because it demonstrated that women could write just as well about the same subjects as men-even about the volatile Dreyfus Affair. When female reporters for \u003ci\u003eLa Fronde\u003c\/i\u003e put on disguises to get a scoop or wrote under a pseudonym, and when actresses played men on stage, they demonstrated that gender identities were not fixed or natural, but inherently unstable. Thanks to the adventures of new women like these, conventional domestic femininity was exposed as a choice, not a destiny. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Lively, sophisticated, and persuasive, \u003ci\u003eDisruptive Acts\u003c\/i\u003e will be a major work not just for historians, but also for scholars of cultural studies, gender studies, and the theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Mary Louise Roberts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226721256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226721255\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/21\/2005\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 353\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.10lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.78w x 0.89d","brand":"Mary Louise Roberts","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47427378118911,"sku":"9780226721255","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_3163c592-a1ed-4d77-ba84-8904d5f66bd0.jpg?v=1761579187","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/disruptive-acts-mary-louise-roberts-9780226721255","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}