From foreign wars to civil wars to gender wars: The Franco -Prussian War, World War II, the Algerian War, and the factual and fictional scapegoating of women

On the surface, the Franco-Prussian War (1870--1), World War II (1939--45), and the Algerian War (1954--62) seem to have little in common. Ninety years and vast differences of scale, duration, and context separate the three. Moreover, in the first two wars, France fought against the occupying Germans whereas, in the last, Algeria fought against the occupying French. Finally, the occupier won the Franco-Prussian War whereas the occupiers eventually lost World War III and the Algerian War.;Yet, despite these huge differences, these three wars share a common structure: the foreign war spawned one or more civil wars, which then ignited both a "hot" gender war, in which many women were killed, and a corresponding "cold" gender war of misogynic propaganda. In each case, the foreign war spawned a civil war when one country occupied another, engendering a battle between collaborators and resisters. Then, in each case, this civil war spawned a "hot" gender war when the victors of the civil war shifted the focus of their subsequent purge from the opposing side's men to the opposing side's women . Finally, in each case, this "hot" gender war, in which women were scapegoated for crimes committed during the civil war, devolved into a "cold" gender war, in which men tried to justify this scapegoating by portraying women as inherently destructive.;During the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian occupation of France ignited a civil war over the Paris Commune of 1871, in which Thiers' collaborationist French government at Versaillais faced off against Parisians who rejected this collaboration with Prussia. Then, during the suppression and purge of the Communards, the victorious Versaillais scapegoated Parisian women whom they dubbed "petroleuses" for the widespread damage done to Paris by fires during the civil war over the Commune.;Likewise, during World War II, the German Occupation of France spawned a civil war between Collaborators and Resisters. Then, during the Epuration or Purge of Collaborators, the Resisters scapegoated French women (dubbed tondues), who had slept with Germans, for some of the greater crimes of France's Collaboration.;The Algerian War, which put an end to France's 132-year occupation, spawned a series of civil wars: (1) between FLN-led resisters and the collaborators, (2) between the FLN government and the Berbers, who opposed Arabization, and (3) between the FLN government and fundamentalists, who demanded more rapid Arabization. Then, these civil wars devolved into a "hot" gender war when fundamentalists shifted the focus of their attacks from non-fundamentalist men to women who refused to wear veils.;Finally, each of these "hot" gender wars in which men scapegoated women further degenerated into a "cold" gender war in which male authors, artists, and directors used femme and fille fatale myths to justify the scapegoating of women.