Arria Ly
Arria Ly (real name Joséphine Gondon; March 24, 1881 – December 19, 1934) was a journalist, writer, lecturer and radical French feminist in the early twentieth century.
[1] Ly, who was known for her aggressive and impassioned rhetoric style, popularized radical feminist ideas, arguing for perpetual celibacy and putting forth a robust anti-marriage campaign.
[3] Ly's notoriety as a radical alternative to mainstream feminism caused her to gain many nicknames including "Cadette de Gascogne," the "Laic Nun," and the "Pistol Virgin.
[3] Further adding to Ly's isolation from mainstream society, her parents insisted on accompanying her in public and refused to take her to a variety of cultural spaces including museums, theaters and the cinema.
[3] As a result of her secluded Catholic upbringing, Ly was not exposed to the realities of male-female sexual relations until 1903 when she, age twenty-two at the time, read a feminist report on prostitution.
[3] Continuing the message provided in the public lecture she gave in 1902, from 1902 to 1903, Ly published a weekly column in the Réveil du Dauphiné, in which she documented the advancement of middle-class women beyond white-collar positions and into a variety of liberal professions.
[3] Ly often launched harsh criticism against married women arguing that their marriage is evidence of their failure to resist the temptation of men and the finality of their loss of virtue.
[3] Six years later, in June of 1911, she published her most controversial and famous article “Vive ‘Mademoiselle!’” which built upon previous arguments by tying unconditional celibacy to the need for female autonomy and specifically pinpointing virginity as the highest honor for feminism.
[4] Ly’s article “Vive ‘Mademoiselle!’” was inspired by debates, popular in the fall of 1910, surrounding whether the term "Madame" should be used to refer to both single and married women, rather than continuing to distinguish between the two.
[3] During this time, Ly came to understand that her ideas separated her from mainstream feminists and, in the article, she specifically acknowledged her failure to rally other French women around the promise of unconditional celibacy.
[3] Although Ly publicly identified as an atheist, the enduring influence of her ultra-Catholic upbringing and her jarring discovery of male-female sexual relations was evident in her treatment of other French feminists and many of her writings.
[1] Acting against the advice of her colleague, Anne Léal, Ly alienated her fellow feminists who were primarily concerned with achieving voting rights and disagreed with her strict ideas of female purity.
[1] Taking a similar, but less personal perspective, one journalist argued that Ly's hard-line rejection of sexual relations was not nearly as subversive as it appeared to be when understood within the framework of Catholicism.
[3] Other members of the French public similarly linked Ly’s disdain for sexual relations to Catholicism and argued that although many of her ideas were too extreme to be widely palatable, many women resonated with her underlying message due to comparable Catholic upbringings.
[3] Concerns about the population problem in the early twentieth century France were influential in shaping the French feminist movement and the public’s response to Ly’s urge for lifelong celibacy.
[5] France's loss in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the subsequent annexation of Alsace-Lorraine underscored for the country the dangers of the population crisis and the associated decline in national military strength.
[5] Immediately following the Franco-Prussian War, French women were targeted as the source of the population problem, accused of avoiding pregnancy and failing to properly care for infants.
[5] As a result, French feminists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were sensitive to the role of the population crisis in shaping public responses to their cause.
[4] Ly’s campaigns against male-female sexual relations and marriage can further be understood as a radical response to the ideas perpetuated by the cult of womanhood, popular in France in the 1870s.
[1] Most mainstream feminists sought to counteract criticism that feminism represented an abandonment of womanhood, arguing that the pursuit of equality did not require women to adopt masculine characteristics.
[3] Ly argued that using feminine versions of the traditionally masculine titles was a necessary step for appropriately acknowledging the inherent value of these young women, separate from the influence of men.
[3] Years later, in 1933, Pelletier published a book, La Femme vierge, in which she argued for women to abandon all of their conventional feminine characteristics and instead adopt male behaviors, tendencies and societal norms as their own.
[4] The UFSF, an organization closely affiliated with the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, was founded by Schmahl in 1909 to fight for women’s right to vote in municipal and regional elections.
[4] At a public meeting in March of 1910, which brought together five pro-suffrage organizations, one of the speakers, Hubertine Auclert, argued that the actions of Ly and the other women running for office, especially the leaders of the UFSF, were hindering the unification of the feminist movement.
[4] Her article was published alongside a letter written by journalist Louis Casalé which suggested that Ly’s arguments for unconditional celibacy served as evidence of her lesbianism.
[6] Casalé's writing, originally published in the Toulouse Reporter, another radical-socialist newspaper, attributed the extreme nature of Ly's call for celibacy to her own corrupted personality.
[6] The Ly-Massat affair, which established Ly as a celebrity of the French feminist movement, resonated particularly strongly with the many women in early twentieth century France who were working to create opportunities for themselves in traditionally male-dominated professions.
[6] Other mainstream feminists upheld Massat’s apology as a victory for female writers who were frequently insulted by their male colleagues in the press, and traditionally lacked avenues through which to defend themselves.
[6] Agreeing with the statements made by Monsieur Lux, some publications argued that both Massat and Casalé failed to meet the journalistic standards in their responses to Ly by opting for personal attacks rather than engaging directly with the arguments articulated in her article.
[8] Ly's ideas continued to echo through later waves of radical feminism, influencing activists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, and Catharine McKinnon.
