Marguerite Pichon-Landry

Marguerite Pichon-Landry
Marguerite Pichon-Landry in 1913
Born	1877
Died	1972
Nationality	French
Occupation	Feminist
Known for	President of the National Council of French Women

Marguerite Pichon-Landry (1877–1972) was a French feminist who was president of the National Council of French Women from 1932 to 1952.

Marguerite Landry was born in 1877 to a family of radical socialist intellectuals. Her mother was Augustine Meuron (1844-1926). Her aunt was Aglaé Meuron (1836-1925). Her great-grandfather François-Timothée Landry (c. 1769–1805) was a naval officer. Her father Timothée Landry (1841–1912) was a lawyer who became prosecutor in Paris towards the end of his career. Of her brothers, Eugène Landry (1872–1913) was a man of letters, and the demographer Adolphe Landry (1874–1956) was a government minister several times. Her twin sister Marie Long-Landry (1877–1968) was a doctor of medicine and was the first woman to head a clinic. Her sister Lasthénie Thuillier-Landry (1879–1962) was also a doctor of medicine and founded the Association of Women Physicians (Association des femmes médecins).

Marguerite Landry studied law at university. In 1903 she married the lawyer Charles-Adolphe Pichon, who became the secretary of Raymond Poincaré. They had one daughter, Amy (1905–92), who was a doctor of medicine and married Jean Bernard (1907–2006).

During World War I (1914–18) Marguerite Pichon-Landry was in charge of the information office for dispersed families. From 1914 to 1927 she chaired the Legislation section of the National Council of French Women (CNFF: Conseil National des femmes françaises). She joined the French Union for Women's Suffrage (UFSF: Union française pour le suffrage des femmes), and was vice-president of the UFSF until the end of the 1930s. The Musée social was an organization of prominent upper- and middle-class social reformers. Its Section d'Études Féminines (Section of Women's Studies) was founded in 1916. Pichon-Landry and Cécile Brunschvicg both joined.

In January 1919 a 38-member extra-parliamentary committee on girl's secondary education ignored the objections of most of its six women members and recommended retaining the "feminine" features of girl's secondary education. In May 1919 the French Chamber of Deputies voted for unrestricted woman suffrage by 344 to 97. Women assumed they would soon get the vote. Cecile Brunschvicg and Marguerite Pichon Landry, leading members of the CNFF and UFSF, brought the women's objections to the education commission to the attention of government ministers. Pichon-Landry and Henry Hébrard de Villeneuve of the Council of State surveyed the postwar hiring practices of administration. Pichon-Landry reported in March 1920 to a joint meeting of the legislative and women's sections of the Musée. Pichon-Ladry made the point that the "sedentary" and "regular nature of administrative work allowed women to combine a job with familial duties." With the economy struggling to recover from the effect of the war, she said, "since everyone, today, recognizes the need to increase production, the reservation of positions to men should not divert some men from more directly productive careers." The members of the Musée social endorsed full equality of the sexes throughout the administration.