Contesting the universal claims of Western feminism: Black feminism and reproductive rights in France and the Overseas Departments (1960s-1980s)

This article sheds new light on the history of French feminism during the crucial period between the 1960s and 1980s, and it does by so opening up the range of actors as well as the geography and chronology considered. More specifically, it reconsiders the battles for reproductive rights: the liberalisation of contraception in 1967 and of abortion in 1975. Focusing on the perspective of those sitting on the margins of reproductive citizenship and of the standard narratives of the feminist movement - immigrant women and their organisations in France, and civil society groups in the Overseas Departments (D & eacute;partements d'Outre-Mer, DOMs) - as well as addressing the distinct reproductive regimes in the DOMs, allows for a reconsideration of French post-war pronatalism, and breaks away from what has long been the standard narrative of Western 'second-wave feminism', globalising and de-centring its history.