Humanities Honors Program

This thesis explores resistance work in Nazi-occupied France and Vichy France during World War II. The research uses paramilitary acts of resistance as a foil to political resistance, intelligence gathering and evasive resistance, and the home front as a site of resistance to spotlight women’s contributions to the French resistance. By exploring several types of resistance work and women’s participation (or lack thereof) in various resistance organizations, this thesis seeks to not only establish the extent of women’s participation in the French resistance but also explore their challenge to the established gender roles within the resistance. This thesis explores the extent of women’s resistance activities across World War II France through internal organizations, such as the French Communist Party and the French Resistance, and external organizations like the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA), British Special Operatives Executive’s F (French) Section (SOE), the British Secret Intelligence Service, and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In the context of these organizations’ activities, this thesis analyzes the gendering of resistance while considering the presence of women in various resistance organizations and their resistance activities to contextualize scope and scale of women’s contributions to resistance work in occupied and Vichy France.