Jacqueline Feldman Explained

Jacqueline Feldman
Birth Date:August 8, 1936
Birth Place:Paris, France
Occupation:Sociologist

Jacqueline Feldman (born August 8, 1936) is a French sociologist and author. She worked as a researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research until retirement in 2001, but has continued to publish until 2020.She co-founded FMA (Féminin, Masculin, Avenir), one of the ancestors that later would become Mouvement de libération des femmes in 1970.

Biography

Early life

Jacqueline Feldman was born in Paris of secular Polish Jewish immigrants, her father working as a tailor. Her parents moved to Paris from Łódź at the end of the 1920s . She has an older sister, born in 1932. During the second world war, the family moved from Paris to Noirétable in order to avoid the Nazis.After the war, the family returned to Paris.

Early professional career as physicist

After getting a job at the CNRS i 1956, she would be sent to the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen where she started a French doctoral PhD in theoretical physics with Ben Roy Mottelson as advisor. She would meet her future husband Hallstein Høgåsen here. In 1961 she published a paper[1] that would later be cited by Mottelson in his Nobel lecture (1975).[2] [3]

The final paper[4] of her French doctoral thesis was published in 1963. She worked as a physicist at Norwegian Institute of Technology (1963–64) and at the CERN (1964–67).

Professional career as a sociologist

In 1968 she would switch professionally from theoretical physics to sociology. She had always been interested in sociology, an interest that was enhanced by the political events in Paris in 1968. The sociologists at CNRS were in need of people with strong mathematical background, permitting her to work with them.

Witnessing the very different ways of thinking in the hard and soft sciences, she developed epistemological reflections about it.[5] [6] [7] as well as comments on the Sokal affair[8]

She also worked on the taboos of sexuality, feminism, and women in science.[9] [10] [11]

FMA

In 1967 Feldman and Anne Zelensky founded the FMA. The abbreviation was originally Féminin, Masculin, Avenir (Feminine, Masculine, Future). As one of several groups, FMA would in 1970 becomeMLF.[12] [13] While the other ancestors of the MLF were purely focused on women's rights and emancipation, the FMA originally had members of both genders and had a focus on women and men collaborating for a better society and relationship between genders. It would after the events of May 1968 become a women-only group with the name changed to Féminism, Marxisme, Action (Feminism, Marxism, Action).[14]

At and during the occupation of Sorbonne in May 1968, Feldman and Zelensky would organize women-themed meetings, inviting and having Évelyne Sullerot to one of them.

Jewishness

After the MLF developed and Feldman could better define herself as a woman in a male-dominatedsociety, she would consider the problem of her non-religious jewishness, together with other women. Shewrote one of the first articles on what is now called Intersectionality.

Work as historian

Critique of science

After May 1968, she criticized scientism through articles in the critical review Impascience[15] (1975-1977). All contributions were anonymous, in accordance to ideas of the time: The content was important, not the author. In Impasciences she collaborated with Françoise Laborie and would later publish a biography on Laborie. The book also treats the critique of science by scientists after May 1968.

Taboo and sexuality

Using the most popular dictionary in France, the Petit Larousse, Feldman shows in the book "La sexualité du Petit Larousse, ou, Le jeu du dictionnaire" the evolution of taboos on sexuality by studying the different versions of the dictionary from it first version in 1905 to 1979.

Condorcet and social mathematics

She has published work on Condorcet, a French mathematician and philosopher being the first to propose social mathematics.[16]

Jews during 2nd world war

As a child and at the start of the second world war, her family moved from Paris to the village Noirétable being in the zone libre until 1942 and hence avoided destiny of many Jews in Paris thanks to the village. As a way to show her gratitude, she worked as a witness[17] and historian for Noirétable and the Loire department [18] in central France.

Marriage and children

Feldman was married in 1961 to physicist Hallstein Høgåsen that she met at the Niels Bohr Institute - they divorced in 1975. They have two children, a boy (born 1962) and a girl (1963).

Philosophical and/or political views

She has always been somewhat involved in trying to change society. In 1960 that was supporting the independence of Algeria, later she was active in the May 68 student movement and the right of women and workers. In 2019, with feminist friends, she launched a call to obtain the right of Assisted suicide.[19]

Books

In collaboration with others

Notes and References

  1. Jacqueline . Feldman . A study of some approximations of the Pairing Force. en. Nuclear Physics. 28. 258–269. 1961. 2 . 10.1016/0029-5582(61)90050-5 .
  2. Elementary Modes of Excitation in the Nucleus . Mottelson . Ben R. . Ben Roy Mottelson . The Nobel Prize . 2020-08-30. 1975 . 193 . 4250 . 287–94 . 10.1126/science.193.4250.287 . 17745715 .
  3. Högaasen-Feldman . J. . A study of some approximations of the pairing force . Nuclear Physics . Elsevier BV . 28 . 1 . 1961 . 0029-5582 . 10.1016/0029-5582(61)91050-1 . 258–269. 1961NucPh..28..258H .
  4. Jacqueline . Feldman . Etude de la force d'appariement et de quelques méthodes d'approximation utilisées en Spectroscopie Nucléaire. fr. Annales de Physique. 8. 697.
  5. Le choc de deux cultures : la rencontre des mathématiques et des sciences humaines dans les années soixante . The shock between two cultures: Mathematics and social sciences in the sixties . La Révolution Interdisciplinaire Aujourd'hui . 1992 . Feldman . Jacqueline . 17–30 .
  6. Feldman . Jacqueline . Pour continuer le débat sur la scientificité des sciences sociales . Revue européenne des sciences sociales. European Journal of Social Sciences . XXXIX-120 . 2001-07-01 . 0048-8046 . 191–222 . 10.4000/ress.662 . fr . 2020-09-27. free .
  7. Feldman . Jacqueline . Objectivité et subjectivité en science. Quelques aperçus . Revue européenne des sciences sociales. European Journal of Social Sciences . XL-124 . 2002-08-01 . 0048-8046 . 85–130 . 10.4000/ress.577 . fr . 2020-09-27. free .
  8. L'affaire Sokal: un épisode de la méconnaissance entre cultures. L'Année Sociologique . 1999 . Feldman . Jacqueline . 49 . 245–270.
  9. Jacqueline . Feldman . Les rapports nationaux sur les comportements sexuels : un exemple de deux types d'interaction science-société. fr. Archives Européennes de Sociologie. XVI. 95–110. 1975.
  10. Le Savant et la Sage-femme. The learned and the midwife . Impact: Science et Société . 1975 . Feldman . Jacqueline . XXV . 133–144.
  11. Book: Segerstedt, Torgny . Ethics for science policy : proceedings of a Nobel symposium held at Södergarn, Sweden, 20-25 August, 1978 . Published for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by Pergamon Press . Oxford New York . 1979 . 0-08-024464-5 . 5100992 . 133–144.
  12. Libération des femmes. Année Zéro . . 2009 . Feldman . Jacqueline . 29 . 193–203 . 10.4000/clio.9326 . free .
  13. News: MLF: 1970, année zéro. MLF: Year zero . Libération. 2018-06-02. Françoise . Picq . 7 October 2008. fr.
  14. Feldman . Jacqueline . De FMA au MLF. Un témoignage sur les débuts du mouvement de libération des femmes. From the FMA to MLF: A Testimony about the Beginnings of the Movement for the Liberation of Women . Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire . 29 . 2009-01-01 . 1252-7017 . 193–203 . 10.4000/clio.9326 . fr . 2020-09-13. free .
  15. Web site: Impascience . 17 May 2011 . French . 2020-08-30 .
  16. Feldman . Jacqueline . Condorcet et la mathématique sociale. Enthousiasmes et bémols . Condorcet and social mathematics; enthusiastic and yet... . Mathématiques et Sciences Humaines . OpenEdition . 172 . 2005-12-01 . 0987-6936 . 10.4000/msh.2955 . fr . 7–41. free .
  17. Web site: 1940 - 1944 : Pays de Noirétable, terre d'accueil des Familles Juives - Ciné documentaire . French . 1940-1944: Noirétable, A haven for Jewish families (showing of documentary film) . 2020-08-30 .
  18. Book: Cabanel, Patrick . Histoire régionale de la Shoah en France : déportation, sauvetage, survie . Regional history of the holocaust in France: Deportation, rescue, survival . Éditions de Paris . Paris . 2011 . 978-2-84621-151-2 . 750163300 . fr . 355–370.
  19. News: Choisir sa vie, choisir sa mort, des femmes persistent et signent. Choosing your life, choosing your death, women persist and sign . Libération. 2018-08-30. 31 October 2019. fr.
  20. Book: Feldman, Jacqueline . La sexualité du Petit Larousse, ou, Le jeu du dictionnaire . The sexuality of the Petit Larousse, or, The dictionary game . Éditions Tierce . Paris . 1980 . 978-2-903144-07-4 . 7742119 . fr . 175.
  21. Book: Feldman, Jacqueline . Voyage mal poli à travers les savoirs et la science . A rude journey through knowledge and science . Éditions Tierce . Paris . 1980 . fr . 85.
  22. Book: Feldman, Jacqueline . Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : histoire d'une femme en science . "Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : Story of a woman in science. l'Harmattan" . Paris . 2020 . 978-2-343-17472-3 . 1163844754 . fr.
  23. Book: Feldman . Jacqueline . Lagneau . Gérard . Matalon . Benjamin. Moyenne, milieu, centre : histoires et usages . Mean, middle and centre: stories and uses. Ed. de l'Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales . Paris . 1991 . 2-7132-0972-2 . 406687994 . fr . 364.
  24. Book: Feldman . Jacqueline . Filloux . J.C. . Lécuyer . B.P.. Selz . M. . Vicente . M. . Éthique, épistémologie et sciences de l'homme . Ethics, epistemology and human sciences. L'Harmattan . Paris Montréal . 1996 . 2-7384-4344-3 . 124084608 . fr . 208.
  25. Book: Feldman . Jacqueline . L'idée de science au XIXe siècle : huit soirées de lecture à la Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement . "Views on science in the 19th century : eight evenings of reading at the 'Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement'" . L'Harmattan . Paris . 2006 . 2-296-01557-3 . 470742785 . fr .
  26. Book: Dhoquois-Cohen . Régine . Feldman . Jacqueline . Ma vie en vielle et le droit d'en choisir la fin . My life as old and the right to choose its end . Les impliqués. Paris . 2022 . 978-2-343-25164-6 . 1334665031 . fr .