As a feminist she was a reference for many of her contemporaries. She was compared to George Sand (for her novels) or Mrs Achermann (for her poems), but she was bigger than that. Despite her female status, that made it more difficult to become famous, she struggled without any familial support and was not embittered for that yet. She get encouragements from her female contemporaries and opened opportunities for women.
Working as a journalist at La Fronde (1897-1901), she wrote during four years a regular column twice a month, with around one hundred articles on societal topic and news.
She was the only woman to intervene at the Trade and Industry Congress held on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of 1900, and obtained that many of her proposals were included into the vows and resolutions adopted in plenary sessions; She published her conclusions in La Fronde (in March 1900) – immediately translated into German – and then published a brochure in bookstores in 1905.
In 1897 she argued in favour of the foundation of literary Academy for women, and denounced inequalities between male and female writers. Such criticisms were realistic: the first members of the Goncourt academy – just after the settlement of the institution – were deliberately misogynous, without even the semblance of hiding their opinion: they refused to read novels published by women!
She took part in 1904 in the creation of the Vie Heureuse Price (known later as Prix Femina), and chaired the new institution until 1907.