A revolutionary reinterpretation of the French past, focused on contesting and defending masculine hierarchy in relations between women and men.

Karen Offen is a historian and a Senior Scholar with the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, California, where she received her Ph.D.

Confronting the woman question in French history: a general introduction; 1. Querying women's power and influence in French culture; 2. Assessing the problem of women and political authority in French history; 3. Bio-medical thinking, population concerns, and the politics of sexual knowledge; 4. Education, intellect, and the sexual politics of knowledge; 5. The politics of women's history in nineteenth-century France; 6. The politics of women's work in France before 1870; 7. Taking stock: the women question on the eve of the Third Republic; Appendix with important dates; Index.