A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #351 - Limoges, 1905: A "Singular" Strike Against the Right of the First Night (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

120 years ago, the Limoges porcelain industry experienced a long and 
successful social movement that highlighted the frequent intertwining of 
class and gender relations, as well as the difficulty of not 
"consenting" in certain situations. This movement was triggered in 
response to the sexual abuse committed by a workshop manager against 
female workers, but without this being clearly stated to explain the 
sole demand: the manager's departure. At stake were both the "honor" of 
women and the "dignity" of men-the fathers or husbands on whom these 
women were legally dependent.*

At the beginning of the 20th century, employers in France, as in other 
countries, worked to "rationalize work," that is, to de-skill it in 
order to reduce its cost. The workers saw their gains challenged by the 
introduction of new technologies that allowed the increasing hiring of 
overexploited female workers, who lacked real professional skills and 
were... women. Women workers earned, on average, half as much as men 
(1). They were assigned to the most health-threatening workshops: their 
life expectancy was five years less than that of men. And they found 
themselves at the mercy of foremen or managers: if they resisted them or 
denounced their actions, they could be fired and thus lose their source 
of livelihood.

The belief that an "honest" woman should stay at home and that a man 
should provide for his family also prevailed in this society steeped in 
bourgeois ideology. But the "supplemental wage" earned by women's work 
had become necessary in the homes of the proletariat (2), and women 
workers quickly understood the value of organizing to make their voices 
heard. These various elements produced contradictory discourses within 
the CGT: it could simultaneously speak of eliminating women's employment 
in certain industries and demand equal pay for workers of both sexes.

Barricade on the Old Aixe Road with the corps of the Estacade mare of 
the 21st Chasseurs, April 15, 1905.
In 1904-1905, numerous mixed-sex strikes broke out in "red" Limoges: in 
the paper industry, construction, porcelain (its main industrial 
activity), and printing.
Others were led solely by women. 20% of female workers were 
unionized-the national average was only 10%-and the porcelain union was 
42% female. In 1904, some seamstresses walked off the job to obtain both 
a wage increase and the dismissal of a foreman; At the Fougeras shoe and 
clog company, it was the authoritarianism of their manager and "his 
attitude towards women" that drove the female workers to do the same for 
seven weeks-and they obtained, in addition to a slight pay raise, the 
transfer of this manager to another workshop.

The choice of words is not insignificant.

In a book (1), historian Alain Boureau disputed the existence of a droit 
de cuissage in medieval France because he saw no mention of it in 
official texts. It was supposedly a "myth" that the Enlightenment 
(Diderot, Beaumarchais, Voltaire, etc.) used to criticize the power of 
lords or priests in the Middle Ages. But the fact that this droit de 
cuissage is not mentioned on paper is not surprising: it constitutes a 
practice condemned by a morality that the dominant class claims to 
respect. This doesn't mean that this practice hasn't been and still 
isn't happening: it's been discussed for centuries (often with virgins 
on the eve of their wedding as victims), and everyone easily understands 
what it's about.
Nowadays, it's recommended to use "sexual harassment" rather than "droit 
de cuissage." However, this expression is not its equivalent. On the one 
hand, the person who harasses is not necessarily in a hierarchical 
relationship with the person being harassed (they can simply be "a 
colleague of the victim, a recruitment consultant, a client of the 
company, etc.," the penal code and the labor code tell us)-so we are no 
longer strictly speaking in a class relationship. On the other hand, the 
person who harasses can be a woman, and the person being harassed a 
man-so we are no longer in a patriarchal relationship. Similarly, "rape" 
and "droit de cuissage" are not synonymous since "droit de cuissage" is 
violence "permitted" by a hierarchical position in public space and 
which can stop at touching, while rape is most often committed (outside 
of wartime) in private space and constitutes the most serious of sexual 
assaults.
So beware: these linguistic deviations are no accident, as the 
proponents of the established order strive to mask social hierarchy with 
bloated "middle classes" and to reduce patriarchal domination to wage 
inequalities between men and women.

1. The Right of the First Night - The Making of a Myth, 13th-20th 
Century (Albin Michel, 1995).

A Brief Chronology of the Conflict in the Porcelain Industry
The movement that began on March 28, 1905, at Charles Haviland, the 
largest and most modern factory in Limoges (3), would be dubbed the 
"painters' strike." Yet, women occupied 40% of the positions in this 
factory-and even 50% in its paint shop. As the title of a song 
emphasizes, "female painters" therefore necessarily participated in this 
strike.

It was officially the dismissal of three "workers accused of having 
provided insufficient work since they were paid by the hour" that lit 
the fuse. In fact, these "workers" had denounced the "right of the first 
night" (see box) exercised by director Penaud over the workers (he "made 
them pass through a small corridor to enter and exit, and then...", 
according to an elliptical testimony reported by L'Écho de Paris on 
April 19). Penaud gave in and reinstated the three painters, but the 
movement continued to obtain his dismissal. Haviland refused and 
declared that the investigations had revealed "no immoral facts" 
concerning Penaud, and on the other hand "proved that some[workers]were 
working as substitutes in brothels." Its representatives proposed to the 
CGT the temporary appointment of Penaud as head of another workshop, but 
the CGT-which would provide very strong support, particularly financial 
(4), to the strikers-demanded his departure or his return to the base in 
another workshop (5).

On April 2, the strike spread to the entire factory, then to that of 
Théodore Haviland, Charles's brother, where the paint workers also 
demanded the departure of their director, Sautour. The socialist mayor 
of Limoges, Labussière, considered on the 3rd that "the conflicts that 
had arisen had no cause of exceptional gravity." A miscalculation: the 
porcelain bosses united because they felt challenged, through Penaud, in 
their authority over "their" workers, and even more so over "their" 
female workers-there was no question of giving in to the strikers, 
therefore, by moving Penaud or Sautour or by firing them. Their 
federation announced that all the city's factories would close if the 
staff at the two Haviland factories did not return to work. This 
decision would put 13,000 people out of work - more than half of the 
25,000 workers in a population of 90,000.

On the 5th, the porcelain bosses decided to lock out their workers. 
Workers demonstrated en masse throughout Limoges. On the 14th, the 
lockout was extended to 19 of the 32 factories, and barricades were 
erected in one of the working-class suburbs. Penaud and Sautour were 
threatened even in front of their respective homes (6), and the movement 
remained uncompromising (7). The prefect banned all gatherings and 
brought the army into the city... The situation turned into a riot: on 
the 15th, a thousand demonstrators occupied the factories; On the 16th, 
a bomb exploded in front of a director's house, Théodore Haviland's car 
was set on fire, and armories were looted. On the 17th, the prison was 
attacked to free arrested protesters. The army injured several others 
and killed a young porcelain worker, Camille Vardelle. On the 19th, 
30,000 people attended his funeral. On the 20th, the strikers voted to 
maintain their demands; the bosses, for their part, refused to end the 
lockout.

On the 22nd, however, an agreement was signed between the two parties: 
the workers' delegation "recognized the boss's freedom regarding the 
direction of work and the choice of his employees"; the employers' 
delegation agreed to approach Charles Haviland "to ask him to no longer 
employ Penaud in his Limoges factory." It was agreed, regarding Sautour, 
that the "dispute (...) no longer existed" and that he would remain in 
office; and also that "any request for rate changes would be deferred," 
that the factories would reopen on April 25, and that "there would be no 
dismissals for strike action."
On the 23rd, the workers' delegates (two men and one woman) presented 
this agreement at a meeting attended by 1,500 people, where the cause of 
the dispute was openly discussed for the first time. The clause in the 
agreement concerning Penaud sparked heated debate; it was decided that 
if he was in the paint shop when the factory reopened, his staff would 
go on strike again, while those in the other factories would return to 
work to provide him with financial support.
The union's decision to postpone wage demands also raised eyebrows, but 
the delegates reiterated that "the conflict rests solely on the Penaud 
case" and that it could not be "aggravated by tariff issues." The text 
of the agreement was nevertheless amended. It recognized that, "in the 
current state of society," employers had the power to appoint and 
dismiss workshop managers, foremen, and directors, but that "the worker 
also possesses the incontestable right to defend by all means his 
economic situation and dignity against the abuses and depravity of an 
unjust and oppressive foreman." In return, "the workers, through their 
organizations, reserve the freedom to formulate any complaints they deem 
justified and to propose any measures they deem useful to prevent the 
recurrence of similar abuses."

On the 24th, Charles Haviland announced that he would open his factory 
"without the assistance of Mr. Penaud." The army withdrew from the 
factories, and they all restarted on the 26th.

THE FOREMAN: "Bunch of brutes! You want to make me do a somersault, just 
because I've done somersaults to your women!...", Jules Grandjouan, 
L'Assiette au beurre, May 6, 1905.
The beginning of the fight for women's right to control their own bodies
During this strike, the sexual abuse committed by Penaud remained 
unspoken for a long time (8), for various reasons. On the part of the 
female workers, it was because of shame at having suffered it and fear 
of tarnishing their reputation by revealing it. On the part of the male 
workers, it was because they felt dispossessed of everything by the 
bosses-of their work, but also of the "property" that their wives or 
daughters represented (9). The same discretion was observed in the 
unions and left-wing parties - thus, it was only at Vardelle's funeral 
that a CGT representative said: "We want our wives and children to be 
respected in our workshops." The CGT also spoke of the women workers as 
a "lamentable and involuntary harem" and "unfortunate exploited people" 
without mentioning their participation in the strike: they were made 
invisible by using only the term "workers." Finally, on the 20th, the 
CGT confederal committee in Paris announced that this social conflict 
had its origins in "the filthy acts of a foreman supported by all the 
porcelain bosses." The day before, in a speech to the National Assembly, 
the socialist deputy Jean Jaurès had remained more reserved: "The 
prefect knew that this strike had a singular character (...). A question 
of moral dignity[was]at stake."

In the end, only local satirical songs and anarchist newspapers directly 
denounced the droit de cuissage (right of the night)-but Le Libertaire 
wondered, on April 25, 1905, whether the cause of this strike merited 
"such an effort" (sic!); and it was stated that such actions should be 
fought not by social struggle, but by the struggle of each man to 
enforce, by force, or even assassination, the honor of the woman he 
should have been "protecting" (sic!).

In any case, the refusal of sexual relations imposed by a hierarchical 
superior was expressed in the only possible way: through a collective 
mobilization of these workers, expected of both men and women by the 
patriarchal system. Their movement can be considered to have defended 
women's right to control their own bodies.

Vanina

* This article owes much to the book Le Droit de cuissage - France 
1860-1930 by feminist sociologist Marie-Victoire Louis, published by 
Éditions de l'Atelier in 1994.

Notes
1. Four times less for the tracing workers who, in Limoges, replaced 
most of the decorators in the porcelain factories.
2. Lack of resources led female workers living alone, or children, into 
occasional prostitution, nicknamed "the fifth quarter of the day."
3. It employed 5,740 men, 2,400 women, and 1,528 children.
4. Union dues were then 10% of the salary for workers, 5% for women and 
children.
5. Foremen or managers were generally former workers. 6. Charles 
Haviland, who refused to negotiate over the choice of his 
representatives (while Penaud was ready to resign), was only hanged in 
effigy on April 14.
7. Subscriptions were opened in solidarity with the victims of the 
lockout; pressure was exerted on workers who refused to contribute to 
this solidarity.
8. On the other hand, numerous complaints were filed with the ceramics 
union.
9. At that time, several members of the same family often worked in the 
same factory or the same specialty.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4474
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en