Focusing on representations of women's experiences in contemporary France, 'Taking Up Space' examines how women inhabit a variety of work spaces. It also speaks to the importance of cultural productions in calling out labour issues affecting women, as well as in offering a platform that allows us to imagine a future where inclusive and equitable work spaces are the norm. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's phenomenological use of objects, the book explores women's experiences through different metaphors of the door related to labour. The contributors demonstrate how doors are not only closed or open, but also serve as a threshold. Taken together, the chapters convey how women's work experiences can range from states of oppression to survival and celebration, and demonstrates how through deliberate stances and actions, various work spaces can become sites of liberation and revolution.

This book will mainly be of interest to an academic audience, for scholarly studies and as instructional material. As the first edited volume on the representations in various cultural productions of women at work in contemporary France, it will be particularly useful to scholars writing and teaching on the question of gender and labour in post-68 France.

Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Introduction - Siham Bouamer and Sonja Stojanovic
PART I Behind Closed Doors: Work and Intimate Spaces
A Transmedial and Transtemporal Reading of Labour on the Run in Albertine - Sarrazin's L'Astragale
Polly Galis
Good Housekeeping: Domestic Noir and Domestic Work in Leïla Slimani's Chanson douce - Ciara GormanA Woman's Huis clos: Exhausted Feminism in Paule Constant's Confidence pour confidence - Jennifer Willging A Life's Work: Accounting for Birth in Naissances - Amaleena Damlé
Sexual Identity as Work in Mireille Best's Il n'y a pas d'hommes au paradis - Blase A. Provitola
Psychoanalytical Work in Chahdortt Djavann's Je ne suis pas celle que je suis - Rebecca Rosenberg
PART II Revolving Doors: Liminal and Precarious Spaces
'Be proud of all the Fatimas': From Alienated Labour to Poetic Consciousness in Philippe Faucon's Fatima - Siham Bouamer
Chimerical Cashiers: Exposure, Ableism and the Foreign Body in Marie-Hélène Lafon's Gordana and Nos vies - Sonja Stojanovic
Subterranean Space and Subjugation: 'Being Below' in Delphine de Vigan's Les Heures souterraines - Dorthea Fronsman-Cecil
In Concrete Terms: Gendering Labour in Anne Garréta's Dans l'béton - Jennifer Carr
Woman at Sea? Space and Work in Catherine Poulain's Le grand marin - Amy Wigelsworth
From Cabaret to the Classroom: Bambi's Professional Transition - Maxime Foerster
PART III From Opening a Few Doors to Blowing Them Off
Women's Bénévolat militant at the Beginning of the MLF - Sandra Daroczi
Women Working - Women Rebelling. Female Community and Gender Relations in Ah!Nana - Valentina Denzel 'Putting Us Back in Our Place': #MeToo, Women and the Literary/Cultural Establishment - Mercédès Baillargeon
Breaking Down Barriers and Advocating for Change in the French Film Industry: The Career and Activism of Actress Aïssa Maïga - Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp
Unapologetically Visible? Representing and Reassessing Contemporary French Womanhood in Dix Pour Cent - Loïc Bourdeau
Tracées to Black Excellence? Black Women at Work in Mariannes Noires by Mame-Fatou Niang and Kaytie Nielsen - Johanna Montlouis-Gabriel
Conclusion - Siham Bouamer and Sonja Stojanovic