Feminisms and Associativism: the national councils of women in France and Portugal, a comparative historical approach, 1888–1939

The aim of this study is to focus on the similarities and differences between two European feminist federations that emerged under the impulse of the International Council of Women: the Conseil National des Femmes Françaises (National Council of French Women), formed in Paris in 1901, and the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas, CNMP (National Council of Portuguese Women) established in Lisbon in 1914. In the panorama of women's associativism in France and Portugal, these two federations had the longest lives. Their leaders came from an urban women's elite and their charismatic personalities secured the longevity of their time in office. Another similarity between the councils was that they adopted a reformist strategy but in a different context: the Third Republic in France and the Republic for the first one-third of the Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas's existence with the remaining almost two-thirds under a military dictatorship followed by Salazarism