When you think of castles, history and heritage, you think of France. Tourists flock here in their millions to visit famous historical sites like the Eiffel Tower, the château of Chambord, Monet’s gardens in Giverney and of course, the former royal palace which is the Louvre. But did you know that of the 460,000 or so pieces of art in this world-renowned museum, only 663 have been attributed to women? Or that of the 6,000 streets in Paris, 2.6% are named after women?
Statistics like this lead one to assume that women’s voices have sounded barely a whisper when it comes to France’s heritage. In fact, the word for cultural heritage in French is patrimoine, in a literal sense the passing down of property from the father, although in France the word takes on a greater meaning of traditions and knowledge and a sense of a communal past which must be guarded by all. But what place is there for women in patrimoine? The very word denies and excludes the ideas, books, sculptures, poems, paintings and plays created by women over the last thousand years. If we want equality between women and men (and we do), then women’s heritage, our matrimoine, must be valued on the same terms as men.
Matrimoine is not a newly created term, it was used as early as the Middle Ages to denote property passed from the mother to her children, but over time the word faded and instead there was matrimonial, as in marriage. When a woman married, she gave her property to her husband and men were hardly going to insist their wives had a separate inheritance for the next generation. Women passed on knowledge, culture, traditions as well as their physical property, but the word itself disappeared.
At the same time, women’s contributions to art and literature disappeared as well. Mademoiselle Scudery, writing in 17th century Paris, published her early works under her brother’s name, so that he received both the accolades and the payment which was her due. The husband of French author Colette took the credit for her novels at the start of her literary career, and it took centuries for the comedy La Folle Enchère to be attributed to its true author, Madame Ulrich. The playwright Voltaire claimed to have written a play titled Brutus, when in fact it was written forty years earlier by Catherine Bernard. And these are the women we know from history.
Statistically, it is impossible that the most significant architecture, literature and art to come out of France has been entirely created by men. Women were for a long time excluded from elitist institutions such as the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, the Académie Française and the Sorbonne, but they were often educated at home or privately. Émilie de Chatelet was tutored in science and Latin, taught herself calculus, and later translated and expanded on the works of Isaac Newton in the mid-18th century. Even without a formal education, women have performed and designed and written. The word autrice, the female for author, comes from the same era as auteur, both as old as France itself. But so much of what was produced by women has been deliberately suppressed by men and lost to history.
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”
On the third weekend of September every year, France celebrates the European Journées du Patrimoine. Churches, châteaux, gardens and museums open their doors to the public and honour their heritage through exhibitions and workshops, conferences and guided tours. This is the weekend to gaze upwards at the gilded ceiling of the Banque de France in Paris, walk down the hallowed halls of the Senate, or discover the home of the French President, the Élysée Palace.
But it’s also the weekend to acknowledge matrimoine. In 2015, the association HF Île-de-France, who advocate for gender equality in arts and culture, initiated the Journées du Matrimoine, which echoes that of the Journées du Patrimoine. A varied cultural program which includes tours, visits, exhibitions, installations, shows, performances, concerts, conferences, readings and screenings, highlights women’s heritage and makes their work visible once more.
A recently published guide, Le Matrimoine de Paris, gives you the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of women in Paris. There are 20 detailed itineraries, in all 20 arrondisements, for you to discover the stories of remarkable women in the context of where they lived, worked and created. Each guided walk takes around one hour.
For as long as there has been culture, women have played a role in creating our cultural heritage. It’s time to bring these authors, musicians, painters, sculptors, designers, filmmakers, celebrated in their time but now dead and forgotten, out of the past and give them the place they deserve in the history of France.