The way women participated in the French Resistance was markedly different from the way men did. Women made up less than 20% of the resisters, about 12% in average (Andrieu, 1997) and their actions followed the strict gender lines that were considered normal at the time. Of course, war was disruptive, and the Resistance did give women the opportunity to escape formal gender roles - and some fully challenged those -, but "social conventions were still stacked up against the involvement of women outside the home" (Gildea, 2015). The MP40-wiedling Simone Segouin photographed by Robert Capa was an exception, as she was among the few women, with those working for the British (SOE) and Free French (BCRA) intelligence services, who bore arms and saw direct military action.

Overwhelmingly, the French women in the Resistance took on / were given / were restricted to traditionally feminine roles and tasked to support the men, who were the ones doing the Nazi-killing and sabotaging that was considered to be the only "true" fighting, notably after the war. Very few women held leadership positions in the Resistance (like Madeleine Braun). Their most common active roles were those of liaison agents and courriers (occasionally transporting weapons and explosives), since, ironically enough, being a woman - and, as often noted, a young and pretty one - made them less suspect and less likely to be detected by the Germans (for whom gender roles were not less difficult to challenge). Others were put in "nurturing" roles, sheltering/treating/caring for/feeding resisters and other people fleeing the Nazis: they were resisting at home. Even when they were working in propaganda, women were more likely to be typists and tasked with logistics rather than being writers, even when they had the talent to do so (eg Hélène Viannay).

Personal (but relevant!) story: in 1946, famed Resistance member Lucie Aubrac had returned to civilian life and resumed her job as a history professor at the Lycée Racine in Paris. Lucie and Raymond Aubrac had been Resistance leaders, and, after Raymond had been arrested by the Gestapo with Jean Moulin, Lucie, while pregnant, had been part of a commando that had attacked the truck that was transporting him, killing all the Germans, and liberating her husband (two movies have been made about this). But this was not the story Lucie Aubrac told in 1946 to her students, one of them my mother. She told of the time when she was ordered by the Resistance higher-ups to poison René Hardy, a member of her network who was accused of being a traitor and having delivered Moulin to the Gestapo. So Lucie Aubrac prepared cyanide-filled jars of jam to be delivered to Hardy, who was in a hospital. The plot failed, but this story was a hit with her students (and it is a fond memory for my mother): you don't often get history teachers who are that badass. And still, Lucie, being a woman, was the one who was supposed to make jam.

Trying to get into fighting roles was often met with refusal. Jeanne Bohec, a chemistry engineer, was hired by the BCRA and was parachuted in France in 1944, where she taught resisters to blow up railtracks, participated in sabotage operations and coordinated parachute drops, but despite her weapon training she was forbidden by military authorities to use a machine gun ("not even a mere Colt or a Stein") during the fighting in Brittany between June and August 1944. This is not a job for women, she was told (Capdevilla, 2000; Bohec, 1975). No matter the role, being in the Resistance was still dangerous, and women were arrested, tortured, deported, or killed for Resistance activities.

The subaltern situation of French women in the civilian Resistance was also that of those who joined the formal military organizations of the Free France. In 1939, 6600 women had enlisted as ambulance drivers or nurses, mostly in the Sections Sanitaires Automobiles (SSA), which were disbanded after June 1940 (Jauneau, 2008). At that time, the sight of women in uniform was shocking to the public. Hélène Terré (see below) recalled (Terré, 1946):

the jibes to which we were subjected on the streets of Paris. We hardly dared go out in public, and when we came back from missions we quickly changed our khaki uniforms for the navy blue that the nurses wore, or else we put on civilian clothes.

The first female military unit of the French army was the Corps des Volontaires françaises (Corps of French Female Volunteers), or CVF, funded in November 1940 in the UK (where auxiliary female units already existed). The CVF recruited former SSA such as Hélène Terré, who would lead it during the rest of the war. While trained as military personel, they were auxiliaries and worked as shorthand typists, telephonists, drivers, nurses and social workers. Only a few were later assigned to the SOE or BCRA, like Jeanne Bohec. Its official purpose as stated in the decree that founded it, was, indeed, to "to free fighters from jobs that could be held by women". The first name chosen for the unit, "Corps Féminin" ("Female Body" in French), was quickly rejected for obvious reasons (Terré, 1946). The women who joined it had to be unmarried and without children, and their behaviour was strictly monitored for fear that the military woman would be "led to compromise her dignity", due to promiscuity with men (Jauneau, 2008). By 1942, the Corps des Françaises Libres (CFL, Free French Women Corps) counted 400 members. Recruitment was successful: by early 1944 there were 3100 women serving in the CFL and other female units operating in North Africa. Two of these units are notable: one was the Groupe Rochambeau, an ambulance unit created the previous year in New York by Florence Conrad, a wealthy American widow. The Groupe Rochambeau was later integrated in Leclerc's Second Armored Division and transferred to the UK, where they received a more formal military training. Another was the Groupe Féminin des Transmissions (CFT), a communications unit created by General Louis Merlin. The CFT was actually the first female unit fully dedicated to tasks that were not considered purely feminine (such as nurses, typists, or secretaries).

As the Resistance was morphing into a regular army, two specific units were created to encompass the previous ones, the Arme Féminine de l'Armée de Terre (AFAT, 26 April 1944), and the Formations Féminines de l'Air (FFA, 3 July 1944). The objective was still the same: free all the military jobs that could be done by women so that all available men able to bear arms could go fighting (Capdevilla, 2000). The military status of the AFAT women was ambiguous. In fact, even the name was unclear: the first "A" stood either for "Arme" or for "Auxiliaires" and the "T" stood for "Terre" (Land) though its members served in the three branches (Land, Navy, Air). They did not have official military ranks: its officers were called "classes" and NCOs were "categories". In some cases, their popular nicknames referred to their feminine status: the Groupe Rochambeau was called the Rochambelles, the CFT created by General Merlin were the Merlinettes, and some women serving in the Navy were called the Marinettes. This was affectionate, but it was also a little bit derisive, even if not perceived as such at the time, considering that these women were often on the front lines and exposed to enemy fire (Jauneau, 2008). Still, the AFAT propaganda did something unprecedented by blurring (slightly) the gender line: like men, women could be heroes, women could be patriots, women could put their skills at the service of the nation (mostly "feminine" skills, but still better than Vichy's obsession with mothers), and they could represent "virile" values such as bravery and the willingness to die for France (Capdevilla, 2000). By the end of the war, there were about 13000-14000 women serving in the AFAT, about 2-3% of the entire Free French army.

-> PART 2