Table-ronde « histoire ouvrière, histoire d'ouvrières »

« The female worker! An unholy, sordid word that no language ever had, that no era would have understood before this iron age, and which alone would offset all our alleged progress! » asserted historian Jules Michelet in 1861. Between myth-making and repression, the figure of female workers is ambivalent: although present throughout all periods and across numerous industrial sectors, they are invisible among the invisible. This conference aims to examine the presence of female workers in France in the 20th century, a time of assertion but also of marginalization for these workers. In factories, workshops, but also at home and during mobilizations, women have always represented at least 20% of the working class and contributed to revolutionizing French society.

Romain Castellesi is an associate professor of contemporary history at Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO). His work focuses on the social history of deindustrialization, particularly the working-class dimension of the phenomenon. In 2025, he published Savoir commencer une grève. Résistances ouvrières à la désindustrialisation dans la France contemporaine, with Agone publishing. Today, his research focuses on oral history surveys in working-class communities and the gender dimension of economic crises.