Aline Valette believed that society should provide support to women engaged in motherhood, the most important of all occupations.
16 Facts About Aline Valette
1.
2.
Aline Valette was the daughter of a railroad worker, trained as a teacher, and was employed by a private school in the working-class district of Montmartre, Paris.
3.
In 1880 Aline married M Valette, a prosperous lawyer, and left work.
4.
Aline Valette became a member of a Guesdist study group and in 1889 represented this group at the International Socialist Congress.
5.
Aline Valette attended the 1891 international congress in Brussels as a confirmed Guesdist.
6.
Aline Valette was earning about 2,000 francs a year from la Journee de la petit menagere and from teaching.
7.
Aline Valette had two children aged eight and ten who, in accordance with a court order, were living with the family of her lawyer at Sevres.
8.
Aline Valette was among the women such as Marie Guillot, Severine, Maria Verone and Marie Bonnevial who campaigned for women's right to vote, for reform of the civil code and for access by women to all topics of study and all professions.
9.
Aline Valette joined the committee that organized the first congress in May 1892, and represented a short-lived union of seamstresses at the congress.
10.
Aline Valette founded the weekly tabloid L'Harmonie sociale which first appeared on 15 October 1892 as a means of making contact with working women to understand their concerns.
11.
Aline Valette was permanent secretary of the POF from 1896 until her death in 1899.
12.
Aline Valette was not able to attend the 1898 POF congress, but did submit a draft resolution on woman's rights, which called for socialist municipalities to hold unofficial women's ballots at the same time as the official men's ballots as a step towards women's suffrage.
13.
Aline Valette died at Arcachon on 21 March 1899, aged forty-eight.
14.
Aline Valette maintained that the socialist program met all the feminist demands.
15.
However, Aline Valette believed strongly in the importance of motherhood, and was impatient of women who chose not to bear children.
16.
Aline Valette agreed with Karl Marx that women were economically oppressed, but argued that the community should support mothering as the most important, and therefore highest status, of all occupations.