The entire political landscape was transformed by the unification of all the socialist groups into one Parti Socialiste (Section Françhise de l'lnternationale Ouvrière), the SFIO. Whereas in the past socialist women had dealt with small, competing parties, they were now faced with a large, united organisation on its way to becoming one of the four main forces on the political spectrum. In 1906, the SFIO received 878,000 votes and elected fifty-two deputies (of a total of 591); in 1914, 1,398,000 votes and 103 deputies. It was a party of national stature, a far cry from the tiny groups within which Rouzade, Valette, and even the GFS had struggled.

Despite its electoral success, the SFIO did not resolve the problem of mobilisation of militants, always the Achilles' heel of French socialism. (Only the communists would eventually organise a mass party of committed militants and that only in the 1930s, around the Popular Front.) The SFIO began with 34,688 members in 1905 and reached 90,725 in 1914. By that time, the German SPD already had a million members, of whom 175,000 were women.

What would the SFIO do about women? We have already seen that it would not have a women's organisation. It remains to be seen what it would do to attract women individually and to seek women's rights. Would it make use of the national stature it was gaining to work for women's emancipation? And, inversely, what would women do in and about the SFIO?