Between Assignments and Transgressions of Gender Identities: Women in the “Jewish sector” of the French Communist Party after the Second World War

Through the case of the women of the “Jewish sector” of the French Communist Party after World War II, this article adopts a dual perspective. On the one hand, it offers a reflection on the history of women and questions the specificities of female involvement within the Jewish sector of the PCF after 1944. On the other hand, it is part of the history of gender and studies various representations (historical, memorial, identity, commemorative) and their impact on the place of women in the Jewish sector. The Jewish sector is a “satellite” of the PCF which conveys masculine representations (I). These representations are central to appointments to positions of responsibility (II). The few female leaders of the Jewish sector face the gendered division of militancy and a glass ceiling, even when their militant careers, especially in the Resistance, are not fundamentally different from those of men (III). Finally, the militant career of most men in the Jewish sector is made possible only by the effacement of their wives within the household as well as by the income of many of them. However, the withdrawal of many women from the visible militant sphere leads to their invisibilization in archives, history and long-term memory (IV).