The "Counter-Public Sphere": Colette's Gendered Collective

Cross-undressing in Colette: Performance, gender and music-hall labour practice

“…Having expected that being 'on tour' implied the 'pilgrimage' of a close 'fraternal' band of fellow travellers, Colette's narrator discovers, instead, 'Pendant les rencontres inévitables sous les porches d'auberges, des regards jaloux, obliques, de chiens qui disent, sans paroles: "Je garde mon os. Passe au large"' (Colette, 1984: 203) In L'Envers, one might expect the majority of women performers to constitute a gendered 'counter-public sphere' (Felski, 1995;Rogers, 1996). Yet the very possibility of community is eliminated by the stage's monopoly of time and energy, leaving performers with little but their fierce pride and independence.…”

“…It is equally tempting to deploy, in this context, Juliette Rogers’ arguments for an empowered gendered collective in two of Colette’s novels (Rogers, 1996). Drawing on Felski’s notion of a ‘gendered counter-public sphere’ in which identity in feminist literature is linked to community – but to community understood differently from that defined by masculinist, universalist perspectives – Rogers finds in two Colette novels, a ‘gendered community that exists both within mainstream society and simultaneously in opposition to it’ (1996: 737). Yet, in the memoir L’Envers du music-hall , a more sombre view of community would seem to be presented; for the solidarity crucial to such a construct is fractured by the demands imposed by the stage.…”

“…In L’Envers , one might expect the majority of women performers to constitute a gendered ‘counter-public sphere’ (Felski, 1995; Rogers, 1996). Yet the very possibility of community is eliminated by the stage’s monopoly of time and energy, leaving performers with little but their fierce pride and independence.…”