A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised.: An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovatorsHéricourt, Madame d'
Philosophy
A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised.: An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovators
Héricourt, Madame d'
Women's rights -- France
We do not give a classification, because we neither have nor can have
one; the elements for its establishment are lacking. A biological
deduction permits us to affirm that such a one exists; but it is
impossible to disengage its law in the present surroundings; the
veritable feminine stamp will be known only after one or two centuries of
like education and equal rights: then there will be no need of a
classification, for the function will fall naturally to the proper
functionary under a system of equality in which the social elements
classify themselves.
My belief and my hopes concerning the future, I shall not confess; for I
may be in error, since I have no facts to control my intuitions, and
everything that is purely Utopian has always a dangerous side. Besides
have I not said that, had I formed a classification, I should not give
it? Why not? Because, a detestable use would be made of it, as usual, if
it were adopted.
Hitherto, have not men availed themselves of classifications based upon
characteristics afterwards recognized as purely imaginary to oppress,
distort and calumniate those banished to the inferior ranks?
History is at hand to give us this salutary lesson. Where is now to-day
the _ville-pedaille_, the villains and base-tenants, fit only to drain
ditches and to be stripped to the skin? Inventing, governing, making laws
for, and gradually transforming our globe, devastated by the _superior
and only capable_ species, into a smiling and peaceful domain.
Upon all classification of the human species, whether in castes, in
classes, or in sexes, are based three wrongs.
The first is to make it a crime in the individual degraded into the lower
series, that he does not resemble the conventional type that has been
formed of this series, while the so called superior being is not required
to resemble his type; thus a weak, cowardly, unintelligent man, a _man
milliner_ or an _embroiderer_, is none the less a man, while a virago, a
firm and courageous woman, a great queen, a woman philosopher are not
women, but men whom none love and who are given over as a prey to wild
beasts, jealous, effeminate men, to devour.
The second wrong is to take advantage of the conventional type to deform
the being classed in the inferior series in order to kill his energies
and to hinder his progress. Then, to attain this end, education, social
surroundings are organized, prejudices are invented; and so successfully
is this done in general that the oppressed, ignorant of himself, believes
himself really of an inferior nature, resigns himself to his chains, and
is even indignant at the rebellion of those of his series who are too
energetic and individual not to react against the part to which social
imbecility has condemned them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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