Intimate Writing, Domestic Oppression, and Feminism in La Paix des ruches (1947) by Alice Rivaz

Abstract

Published in 1947, in a Swiss context marked by legal gender inequality and decades before women gained the right to vote, La Paix des ruches, by Alice Rivaz, develops a fictional narrative that anticipates fundamental debates in contemporary feminist thought. Often classified as an intimate diary, the novel is, in fact, a continuous flow of personal reflections by the protagonist Jeanne Bornand, who balances wage labor with invisible domestic labor. This article examines how intimate writing reveals the tensions between female subjectivity, everyday silencing, and patriarchal structures, highlighting the oppression of traditional marriage and the emotional overload imposed on women. The critical reading draws on theoretical frameworks by Simone de Beauvoir, particularly her formulation of immanence and transcendence, and Silvia Federici, through the concept of reproductive labor as an unrecognized foundation of capitalist economies. Through delicate prose, Rivaz constructs a subtle critique of patriarchal order and affirms sorority and writing as forms of resistance. By politicizing the everyday and giving voice to female experience, La Paix des ruches reaffirms its status as a central work in gender, literature, and subjectivity studies.