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Conf prononcée pour le centenaire de la Rev aux USA Virginia
HUMAN RIGHTS AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Benoîte Groult
My subject to-day, "Women's Rights", has not much to do, I am sorry to say, with the French Revolution. But in France, which sees herself as the native land of LES DROITS DE L'HOMME as well as of the SUFFRAGE UNIVERSEL, one is fond of thinking that in 1789, all privileges were abolished.
Indeed the Revolutionaries of 89 had abolished in the span of one night, the 4th of August, the privileges of the Nobility, then those of the Clergy. But they took care not to touch those of the Patriarchy. The same men who proclaimed the end of slavery didn't cast an eye upon their own slaves. And this reminds me of what was said in a previous lecture about Jefferson not freeing hiw own 80 slaves, while proclaiming that all men were equal. There is one difference though: Jefferson was hoping that this institution of slavery would disappear; whereas men -or owners should I say?-go on hoping that the institution of domestic service for women will last!
In 89, the Bastille, symbol of despotic power, had fallen to pieces. But each man, each father, husband, brother or even son, remained an absolute monarch, legally and socially, in his home as well as on the public scene.
One legislator, and one only, protested against this betrayal of the basic principles of the Revolution which was meant to be universal, and this was CONDORCET. But he got unanimously rejected by the Assembly and 2 years later he only escaped from the guillotine by committing suicide.
In the same way only one woman dared to point out that the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man applied indeed to Man, but to man only: OLYMPE DE GOUGES. Deploring the way women had been forgotten, she dedicated to the queen Marie-Antoinette in 1791 what she called "La déclaration des Droits de la Femme". In this audacious and very advanced text, she claimed rights that no one had ever dreamed of and that many are still craving for to-day in so-called civilized countries: not only vote and equal education for both sexes, but the right to paternity claim, to an equal status for illegitimate children, to divorce with alimony, to follow all male trades if they wished, etc...
She is mostly remembered for her famous formula: "Since a woman is allowed to go up to the scaffold, she must also be allowed to the Tribune of Parliament."
Robespierre took her at her word... at least for the scaffold!
Benoîte Groult
My subject to-day, "Women's Rights", has not much to do, I am sorry to say, with the French Revolution. But in France, which sees herself as the native land of LES DROITS DE L'HOMME as well as of the SUFFRAGE UNIVERSEL, one is fond of thinking that in 1789, all privileges were abolished.
Indeed the Revolutionaries of 89 had abolished in the span of one night, the 4th of August, the privileges of the Nobility, then those of the Clergy. But they took care not to touch those of the Patriarchy. The same men who proclaimed the end of slavery didn't cast an eye upon their own slaves. And this reminds me of what was said in a previous lecture about Jefferson not freeing hiw own 80 slaves, while proclaiming that all men were equal. There is one difference though: Jefferson was hoping that this institution of slavery would disappear; whereas men -or owners should I say?-go on hoping that the institution of domestic service for women will last!
In 89, the Bastille, symbol of despotic power, had fallen to pieces. But each man, each father, husband, brother or even son, remained an absolute monarch, legally and socially, in his home as well as on the public scene.
One legislator, and one only, protested against this betrayal of the basic principles of the Revolution which was meant to be universal, and this was CONDORCET. But he got unanimously rejected by the Assembly and 2 years later he only escaped from the guillotine by committing suicide.
In the same way only one woman dared to point out that the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man applied indeed to Man, but to man only: OLYMPE DE GOUGES. Deploring the way women had been forgotten, she dedicated to the queen Marie-Antoinette in 1791 what she called "La déclaration des Droits de la Femme". In this audacious and very advanced text, she claimed rights that no one had ever dreamed of and that many are still craving for to-day in so-called civilized countries: not only vote and equal education for both sexes, but the right to paternity claim, to an equal status for illegitimate children, to divorce with alimony, to follow all male trades if they wished, etc...
She is mostly remembered for her famous formula: "Since a woman is allowed to go up to the scaffold, she must also be allowed to the Tribune of Parliament."
Robespierre took her at her word... at least for the scaffold!
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Emma