Jacqueline Feldman was born in
Paris of secular Polish Jewish immigrants, her father working as a tailor. Her parents moved to Paris from
Łódź at the end of the 1920s . She has an older sister, born in 1932.
During the second world war, the family moved from Paris to
Noirétable in order to avoid the Nazis.
After the war, the family returned to Paris.
Early professional career as physicist
After getting a job at the
CNRS i 1956, she would be sent to the
Niels Bohr Institute in
Copenhagen where she started a French doctoral PhD in theoretical physics with
Ben Roy Mottelson as advisor. She would meet her future husband
Hallstein Høgåsen here. In 1961 she published a paper[2]
that would later be cited by Mottelson in his Nobel lecture (1975).[3][4]
The final paper[5] of her French doctoral thesis was published in 1963. She worked as a physicist at
Norwegian Institute of Technology (1963–64) and at the
CERN (1964–67).
Professional career as a sociologist
In 1968 she would switch professionally from theoretical physics to sociology. She had always been interested in sociology, an interest that was enhanced by the political events in Paris in 1968. The sociologists at
CNRS were in need of people with strong mathematical background, permitting her to work with them.
She also worked on the taboos of sexuality, feminism, and women in science.
[10][11][12][13][14]
FMA
In 1967 Feldman and
Anne Zelensky founded the FMA. The abbreviation was originally Féminin, Masculin, Avenir (Feminine, Masculine, Future). As one of several groups, FMA would in 1970 become
MLF.[15][16] While the other ancestors of the MLF were purely focused on women's rights and emancipation, the FMA originally had members of both genders and had a focus on women and men collaborating for a better society and relationship between genders. It would after the events of May 1968 become a women-only group with the name changed to Féminism, Marxisme, Action (Feminism, Marxism, Action).[17]
At and during the occupation of
Sorbonne in May 1968, Feldman and Zelensky would organize women-themed meetings, inviting and having
Évelyne Sullerot to one of them.
Jewishness
After the MLF developed and Feldman could better define herself as a woman in a male-dominated
society, she would consider the problem of her non-religious jewishness, together with other women. She
wrote one of the first articles on what is now called
Intersectionality.
Work as historian
Critique of science
After May 1968, she criticized
scientism through articles in the critical review
Impascience[18] (1975-1977). All contributions were anonymous, in accordance to ideas of the time: The content was important, not the author. In Impasciences she collaborated with
Françoise Laborie and would later publish a
biography[1] on Laborie. The book also treats the critique of science by scientists after May 1968.
Taboo and sexuality
Using the most popular dictionary in France, the
Petit Larousse, Feldman shows in the book "La sexualité du
Petit Larousse, ou, Le jeu du dictionnaire"[13] the evolution of taboos on sexuality by studying the different versions of the dictionary from it first version in 1905 to 1979.
As a child and at the start of the second world war, her family moved from
Paris to the village
Noirétable being in the
zone libre until 1942 and hence avoided destiny of many Jews in Paris thanks to the village. As a way to show her gratitude, she worked as a witness
[20]
and historian for
Noirétable and the
Loire department[21]
in central
France.
Marriage and children
Feldman was married in 1961 to
physicistHallstein Høgåsen that she met at the
Niels Bohr Institute - they divorced in 1975. They have two children, a boy (born 1962) and a girl (1963).
Philosophical and/or political views
She has always been somewhat involved in trying to change society. In 1960 that was supporting the independence of Algeria, later she was active in the May 68 student movement and the right of women and workers. In 2019, with feminist friends, she launched a call to obtain the right of
Assisted suicide.[22]
Voyage mal poli à travers les savoirs et la science (1980) [14]
Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : histoire d'une femme en science (2020) [1]
In collaboration with others
Moyenne, milieu, centre : histoires et usages (1991) [23]
Éthique, épistémologie et sciences de l'homme (1996) [24]
L'idée de science au XIXe siècle : huit soirées de lecture à la Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement (2006) [25]
Ma vie en vielle et le droit d'en choisir la fin [26]
References
^
abcFeldman, Jacqueline (2020). Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : histoire d'une femme en science ["Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : Story of a woman in science] (in French). Paris: l'Harmattan".
ISBN978-2-343-17472-3.
OCLC1163844754.
^Feldman, Jacqueline (1961). "A study of some approximations of the Pairing Force". Nuclear Physics. 28 (2): 258–269.
doi:
10.1016/0029-5582(61)90050-5.
^Feldman, Jacqueline. "Etude de la force d'appariement et de quelques méthodes d'approximation utilisées en Spectroscopie Nucléaire". Annales de Physique (in French). 8: 697.
^Feldman, Jacqueline (1992). "Le choc de deux cultures : la rencontre des mathématiques et des sciences humaines dans les années soixante" [The shock between two cultures: Mathematics and social sciences in the sixties]. La Révolution Interdisciplinaire Aujourd'hui: 17–30.
^Feldman, Jacqueline (1999). "L'affaire Sokal: un épisode de la méconnaissance entre cultures". L'Année Sociologique (49): 245–270.
^Feldman, Jacqueline (1975). "Les rapports nationaux sur les comportements sexuels : un exemple de deux types d'interaction science-société". Archives Européennes de Sociologie (in French). XVI: 95–110.
^Feldman, Jacqueline (1975). "Le Savant et la Sage-femme" [The learned and the midwife]. Impact: Science et Société. XXV: 133–144.
^Segerstedt, Torgny (1979). Ethics for science policy : proceedings of a Nobel symposium held at Södergarn, Sweden, 20-25 August, 1978. Oxford New York: Published for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by Pergamon Press. pp. 133–144.
ISBN0-08-024464-5.
OCLC5100992.
^
abcFeldman, Jacqueline (1980). La sexualité du Petit Larousse, ou, Le jeu du dictionnaire [The sexuality of the Petit Larousse, or, The dictionary game] (in French). Paris: Éditions Tierce. p. 175.
ISBN978-2-903144-07-4.
OCLC7742119.
^
abFeldman, Jacqueline (1980). Voyage mal poli à travers les savoirs et la science [A rude journey through knowledge and science] (in French). Paris: Éditions Tierce. p. 85.
^Cabanel, Patrick (2011). Histoire régionale de la Shoah en France : déportation, sauvetage, survie [Regional history of the holocaust in France: Deportation, rescue, survival] (in French). Paris: Éditions de Paris. pp. 355–370.
ISBN978-2-84621-151-2.
OCLC750163300.
^Feldman, Jacqueline; Lagneau, Gérard; Matalon, Benjamin (1991). Moyenne, milieu, centre : histoires et usages [Mean, middle and centre: stories and uses] (in French). Paris: Ed. de l'Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. p. 364.
ISBN2-7132-0972-2.
OCLC406687994.
^Feldman, Jacqueline; Filloux, J.C.; Lécuyer, B.P.; Selz, M.; Vicente, M. (1996). Éthique, épistémologie et sciences de l'homme [Ethics, epistemology and human sciences] (in French). Paris Montréal: L'Harmattan. p. 208.
ISBN2-7384-4344-3.
OCLC124084608.
^Feldman, Jacqueline, ed. (2006). L'idée de science au XIXe siècle : huit soirées de lecture à la Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement ["Views on science in the 19th century : eight evenings of reading at the 'Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement'"] (in French). Paris: L'Harmattan.
ISBN2-296-01557-3.
OCLC470742785.
^Dhoquois-Cohen, Régine; Feldman, Jacqueline (2022). Ma vie en vielle et le droit d'en choisir la fin [My life as old and the right to choose its end] (in French). Paris: Les impliqués.
ISBN978-2-343-25164-6.
OCLC1334665031.