Over four million French women were working outside the home in non-agricultural labor at the turn of the century, but they lacked representation in the organized reform efforts.
The original manifesto of the Groupe Feministe Socialiste stated that they wanted to end the "double oppression of women, exploited on a large scale by capitalism, subject to men by laws and especially by prejudice.
"[2] The group gained popularity quickly, but it suffered from disinterest from male socialists as well as class conflict between the bourgeois and proletariat feminists.
A good example of this class conflict can be seen in the suggestion made at a 1900 convention that domestic servants receive a full day off per week, a measure already adapted for industrial workers.
Louise Saumoneau, on the other hand, hated the bourgeois feminists, feeling that they were irrevocably out of touch with the realities of the working class.