The Modern Woman's Rights Movement: A Historical SurveySchirmacher, Käthe
History
The Modern Woman's Rights Movement: A Historical Survey
Schirmacher, Käthe
Women -- Social and moral questions; Women's rights
No other code, above all no other Germanic or Slavic code,[81] has been
disgraced by such paragraphs. In the first of the designated paragraphs we
hear the Corsican, a cousin of the Moor of Venice; in the second we hear
the military emperor, and general of an unbridled, undisciplined troop of
soldiers. No one will be astonished to learn that this same lawgiver in
1801 supplemented the Code with a despotic state regulation of
prostitution. What became of the woman's rights movement during this
arbitrary military régime? Full of fear and anxiety, the woman's rights
advocates concealed their views. The Restoration was scarcely a better
time for advocating woman's rights. The philosopher of the epoch, de
Bonald, spoke very pompously against the equality of the sexes, "Man and
woman are not and never will be equal." It was not until the July
Revolution of 1830 and the February Revolution of 1848 that the question
of woman's rights could gain a favorable hearing. The Saint Simonians, the
Fourierists, and George Sand preached the rights of man and the rights of
woman. During the February Revolution the women were found, just as in
1789, in the front ranks of the Socialists. The French woman's rights
movement is closely connected with both political movements. Every time a
sacrifice of Republicans and Democrats was demanded, women were among the
banished and deported: Jeanne Deroin in 1848, Louise Michel, in 1851 and
1871.
Marie Deraismes, belonging to the wealthy Parisian middle class, appeared
in the sixties as a public speaker. She was a woman's rights advocate.
However, in a still greater degree she was a tribune of the people, a
republican and a politician. Marie Deraismes and her excellent political
adherent, Léon Richer, were the founders of the organized French woman's
rights movement. As early as 1876 they organized the "Society for the
Amelioration of the Condition of Woman and for Demanding Woman's Rights";
in 1878 they called the first French woman's rights congress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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