L'Effacement de La Cantinière ou La Virilisation de L'Armée Française au XIXe Siècle

In this article on the gendering of the French military, Mihaely demonstrates how women played a part in French military society under the Old Regime and remained present in military spaces throughout the 19th century. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, French society had become almost completely intolerant of the woman soldier, whose representations in songs, burlesques, and novels appeared less and less frequently.  As female soldiers came to represent ambiguity and transgression, they were even considered by some as the "third sex." Instead, the male soldier became the model of French virility--its incarnation and its utmost display of corporal attributes. The Army consequently became the school of virility while the female soldier constituted sacrilege.