Les débuts du féminisme roumain: de l’action individuelle à l’action collective

Abstract

The paper explores the beginning of women’s movement during the second half of the 19th century in Romania. What kind of capitals and positions did allow women to enter a sphere (the public sphere) that officially was inaccessible to them? What kind of actions or ideas mobilized women? What was the relationship between the normative models and their contestation? The social origin, the intellectual formation, marriage (especially the husband's profession) seem to have been essential factors for the women's public presence and expression. The article shows that initially charity and discourses on feminine education prevailed; feminist ideas and practices intervened at a later stage and had difficulties in consolidating. The context in which these changes take place is the period of the formation of a gender awareness, a condition for the birth of the feminist movement.