Recycling women: representations of women’s vocational training on French television (1958-1973)

Cet article explore le moment où le thème de la formation professionnelle des femmes, longtemps négligé, s’invite dans le débat public sous la pression d’organisations internationales et nationales. À partir d’un corpus de documentaires et reportages filmés diffusés à la télévision française entre 1958 et 1973 et de différents fonds d’archives, il analyse l’émergence d’une figure de femme en formation professionnelle féminine, celle d’une femme au foyer souhaitant (re)trouver un travail après une longue interruption pour raison familiale. Cette figure en vient à éclipser toute autre image, notamment celle de la salariée en formation. Les documents filmés sont pris ici comme des révélateurs des manières de penser la formation et son public dans une période de transition historique, celle d’une remise en question des rôles socio-sexuels en particulier vis-à-vis du travail. This article explores the moment when women’s vocational training, long neglected, became a topic of public debate, under pressure from international and national organizations. Based on the study of a corpus of filmed documentaries and reports broadcast on French television between 1958 and 1973, as well as on archives of the period, it analyses the emergence of a new image of adult women who chose to embark on occupational training at the time: primarily, they were represented as housewives or homemakers, seeking to return to work after a long intermission for family reasons. This figure tends to eclipse any other image, notably of women already in paid employment who undertook further vocational training. The films in question are seen as indicators of ways of thinking about vocational training and those it addresses, in a period of historical transition, when gender roles, particularly those linked to employment, were being questioned.