The relationship between feminism and socialism in the life and work of Flora Tristan (1803-1844)

Abstract

Flora Tristan was one of the earliest activists for feminism and socialism and campaigned under the July Monarchy in France. This thesis aims to highlight the relationship between feminism and socialism through the medium of Flora Tristan's life and work. It is based on a chronological study of her writings to illustrate how her egalitarian feminism developed from her personal circumstances and flourished into literature. It focuses mainly on the evolution of her ideas as she rejected both egalitarian and messianic feminism in favour of socialist militancy among the French working class. Her /- effort to insert feminism, as a high priority, into the nascent socialist movement, is closely scrutinised. In the light of more recent developments in France, the conclusion suggests that her life's work was a microcosm of the relationship between feminism and socialism as it was to develop after her death in 1844.