Women in male occupations. Narratives of modernity and commercial uses of feminism in 1900s Paris

Women’s access to occupations held by urban working-class men, such as cabbie and billposter in the 1900s, has not been integrated into the historiography on women’s work nor into the feminist memory of “pioneering women.” Yet, these female workers were viewed as a historical event within the urban landscape, and they were abundantly photographed, staged, and set up as living examples of “feminist conquests” and “Parisian modernity.” This article explores the process that led numerous entrepreneurs, photographers, and publicists to hire and make visible these female workers, and it seeks to understand the relationships that these different actors had with the feminist struggles of the time for women’s access to traditionally male occupations. Based on photographic, journalistic, activist, and police documents, as well as private correspondence and civil status archives, it demonstrates how the showcasing of advancements in gender equality constituted a source of symbolic and economic profit for various entrepreneurs, which did not as such imply advocacy for feminist demands.