She Said No

She Said NO investigates the gender inequality in the authority to speak—and therefore to refuse—that prevailed in the establishment and interpretation of the French classics. By selecting authors deemed essential to French cultural heritage and erasing the works of women writers, this biased canon has systematically undervalued female agency—even in well-known works by both men and women, such as Beauty and the Beast, The Princess of Clèves, and “Little Red Riding Hood.” With this book, Jennifer Tamas fills a striking gap in early modern French studies by conceptualizing consent in a society where being a woman made it structurally difficult to say “no.” Yet, women did refuse. The history Tamas explores is one of forgotten, erased, misunderstood, or inadmissible refusals, and how they have been obscured. The #MeToo movement has brought questions of female agency and consent to the fore, and this book retraces an “archive of refusal” to serve as a source of inspiration for contemporary feminist discourse and to change our reception of the French canon.