Jacqueline Feldman

Jacqueline Feldman (born August 8, 1936) is a French sociologist and author. She worked as a researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research until retirement in 2001, but has continued to publish until 2020. that would later be cited by Mottelson in his Nobel lecture (1975).

The final paper 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.

Witnessing the very different ways of thinking in the hard and soft sciences, she developed epistemological reflections about it.

as well as comments on the Sokal affair

She also worked on the taboos of sexuality, feminism, and women in science.

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).

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 (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

Jews during 2nd world war 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

and historian for Noirétable and the Loire department

in central France.

Marriage and children Feldman was married in 1961 to physicist Hallstein 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.

Books La sexualité du Petit Larousse, ou, Le jeu du dictionnaire (1980) Voyage mal poli à travers les savoirs et la science (1980) Françoise Laborie, 1938-2016 : histoire d'une femme en science (2020)

In collaboration with others Moyenne, milieu, centre : histoires et usages (1991) Éthique, épistémologie et sciences de l'homme (1996) L'idée de science au XIXe siècle : huit soirées de lecture à la Bibliothèque des amis de l'instruction du IIIe arrondissement (2006) Ma vie en vielle et le droit d'en choisir la fin