"The women's problem means the relationship between every woman-without
power, history, culture, or role-and every man-his power, his history,
his culture, his absolute role. The women's problem calls into question
all the actions and thoughts of the absolute man, of the man who was
unaware of woman as a human being on a par with himself. We have
demanded equality throughout the century, and Olympe de Gouges was sent
to the gallows for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female
Citizen. The demand for women's equality with men in terms of rights
coincides historically with the affirmation of men's equality with one
another. Our presence, then, was timely."
These words open the celebrated "Spit on Hegel," a manifesto published
by the feminist group Rivolta Femminile in 1970. The Rivolta comrades
thus pay homage to Olympe de Gouges, a woman who was many things, but
above all, timely.
Obstinate and indomitable, during the French Revolution she publicly
posed the women's question with unwavering clarity. She found it
uncomfortable and annoying even-or rather, especially-to fervent
revolutionaries, men too proud to consider themselves open to criticism,
men so absorbed in pursuing lofty ideals that they did not (want) to see
women at their side. After the overthrow of the monarchy and all
traditional sociopolitical categories, the old and dusty Ancien Régime
had to give way to a new social model, in which women of all social
classes would have to abandon freedom, politics, and culture (which, in
any case, had always been reserved for nobles only), to return (or
remain) to the domestic sphere, as sanctioned by the sexual division of
labor and living environments. Ignored, wounded, betrayed by the
revolution: does this remind you of anything? I think of the postwar
period, I think of the political movements of the second half of the
last century. But we women are not satisfied, and never have been.
Olympe de Gouges was born in 1748 in Montauban, a small town in southern
France. Marie Gouze, as she was called, received a minimal,
low-to-average education (sometimes even portrayed as semi-illiterate).
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, she saw writing as a political
act and made public speech the primary instrument of her revolution:
hers and that of all the women betrayed by the Jacobin Revolution.
Having married very young and under duress, she fled to Paris at the age
of eighteen, marking this turning point in her life with two acts of
both practical and symbolic significance: she chose the name Olympe de
Gouges (Olympe in homage to her mother, de Gouges as a "noble"
expression of her surname) and, likely lying, declared herself a widow
(a piece of information provided by the Historical Dictionary of the
French Revolution, reported by scholar Natalia Caprili). Whether she was
actually a widow or not, in the French capital she presented herself as
such, choosing never to marry again. She thus left the domestic sphere,
and did so in such a disruptive way that her son, to whom some of her
last thoughts would be directed, disowned her. In any case, her
resourcefulness paid off: in Paris, de Gouges lived in an exceptional
political, cultural, and artistic context, frequented the Sociétés des
femmes (women's groups of politically active women), became interested
in theater, and became an activist, writer, and playwright-a creativity
entirely dedicated to political goals.
De Gouges is a proto-feminist and an abolitionist. Her thought did not
reach the level of analysis we would today call "intersectionality,"
but, even without finding a synthesis in intersectional complexity, her
intentions were already moving in that direction: the existence of
slaves (both male and female) in the French colonies was a clear
contradiction to the proclamation of so-called universal rights; the
existence of women, excluded from many rights even in their homeland,
was another clear contradiction-we were already the Unexpected Subject,
to quote Carla Lonzi again. Therefore, even though in her thinking the
questions of gender and race (two terms I use anteliteram) did not
interpenetrate, de Gouges deserves credit for having raised them-and for
having done so publicly. You, who read this, probably admire her. But de
Gouges was, after all, a woman who lived in late eighteenth-century France.
Even after the Revolution, women remained half citizens: they had the
duty to pay taxes and were subject to the law, but they had no political
rights to vote or stand for election - in some phases of those troubled
years they could not even attend the discussions of institutional
political assemblies. In this context of discrimination, not only had de
Gouges, as a citizen, dared to criticize the dictatorial drift of the
Jacobins, and Robespierre in particular, earning herself the title of
"enemy of the Republic," but as a woman, she persisted in speaking out
publicly, demanding citizenship rights for all. But the revolutionaries
did not question the existence of hierarchies, authority, or repression:
power remained, and must be kept in male hands.
Obstinate or resigned? Shout louder or remain silent forever? To quote
Natalia Caprili and her "Cittadine di carta," de Gouges "uses writing as
a surrogate for citizenship," that is, she uses writing as an
alternative form of political participation, exercised outside of
institutions or organized male groups and therefore not subject to the
concessions, limitations, and prohibitions imposed by men.
On August 26, 1789, the Constituent Assembly promulgated the Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Of man and of the citizen.
Women are excluded linguistically, formally, and substantially, erased
from a universal subject that is not universal-and in fact, full
citizenship is not envisaged for them, since they lack fundamental
political rights. Thus, in 1791, de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. The sisterhood, even
unintentional, was already powerful, and on the other side of the
English Channel, the proto-feminist British Mary Wollstonecraft was
beginning work on another A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792),
which we will discuss next month.
But let's return to de Gouges's France. The 1791 Declaration does not
simply propose an extension of men's rights to women: it is not a matter
of copying the 1789 Declaration by replacing the word "man" with "woman"
and declining the entire text in the feminine. De Gouges's Declaration
is much more; it is a reformulation that includes everyone, an original
and substantial political and philosophical reworking.
An interesting example is Article 4, on liberty. In 1789, men wrote:
"Liberty consists in the power to do everything that does not harm
others: thus, the exercise of each man's natural rights has as its only
limits those that ensure the enjoyment of those same rights by other
members of society. These limits can be determined only by law." Thus, a
reformulation of the famous Enlightenment maxim "my liberty ends where
yours begins." A concept of liberty that seems closer to tolerance and
mutual forbearance than to harmony and community life, as if individuals
could enjoy spheres of freedom only on condition that these spheres do
not touch, as if the possibility of being free together-and, I would
argue, only together-did not exist. These limits were already clear to
de Gouges, who in Article 4 rephrases it: "Freedom and justice consist
in giving back to others what belongs to them; thus, the exercise of
women's natural rights has as its only limit the perpetual tyranny that
man opposes to her; this limit must be reformed by the law of nature and
reason." Therefore, there is no freedom without redistribution and
questioning the system: freedom exists only together with justice.
Freedom belongs to all-or it does not exist. And while men look to one
another to establish and mark the boundary that makes them respectful or
usurpers, they forget that by drawing their boundaries so "freely" they
pierce the bodies of women. For Olympe de Gouges, ethical and political
reference points are not only the (fallible) law of men and human
institutions, but also Nature and Reason, but also the Nation, which "is
Man and Woman together." Nature, Reason, and Nation are beacons that
illuminate the conscience, guiding it toward ethics, politics, and the
common good.
Entangled in life and not just in fervent ideologies, marked by a father
who never recognized her, de Gouges does not fail to justify her demands
by also referring to the concreteness of embodied life: "The free
communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious
rights of women, since this freedom ensures the legitimacy of fathers
with respect to their children. Every citizen can therefore freely say,
'I am the mother of a child who belongs to you'" (Article 11).
The "free communication of thoughts and opinions" is a precious right,
it is true, and de Gouges will pay dearly for it.
Olympe de Gouges was guillotined in 1793 for speaking out against the
execution of Louis XVI, for addressing her Declaration to Queen Marie
Antoinette, and, above all, for failing to take a Jacobin stance. Close
to the Girondists, she was accused of being a counterrevolutionary and
pro-monarchist. Since there was insufficient evidence to incriminate
her, the focus was on the political ideas she had expressed publicly,
particularly in her work, The Three Urns. But she was also punished "for
forgetting the virtues befitting her sex and for meddling in the affairs
of the Republic," as a French politician commented upon her death sentence.
"No one should be persecuted for their opinions, even fundamental ones.
If a woman has the right to ascend the scaffold, she must also have the
right to ascend the[political]tribune" (Article 10). De Gouges ascended
the scaffold, laying a foundation for us, decades later, to ascend the
tribune.
Serena Arrighi
Germinal Carrara Group
https://umanitanova.org/una-rivoluzione-nella-rivoluzione-olympe-de-gouges-una-filosofa-al-mese/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
power, history, culture, or role-and every man-his power, his history,
his culture, his absolute role. The women's problem calls into question
all the actions and thoughts of the absolute man, of the man who was
unaware of woman as a human being on a par with himself. We have
demanded equality throughout the century, and Olympe de Gouges was sent
to the gallows for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female
Citizen. The demand for women's equality with men in terms of rights
coincides historically with the affirmation of men's equality with one
another. Our presence, then, was timely."
These words open the celebrated "Spit on Hegel," a manifesto published
by the feminist group Rivolta Femminile in 1970. The Rivolta comrades
thus pay homage to Olympe de Gouges, a woman who was many things, but
above all, timely.
Obstinate and indomitable, during the French Revolution she publicly
posed the women's question with unwavering clarity. She found it
uncomfortable and annoying even-or rather, especially-to fervent
revolutionaries, men too proud to consider themselves open to criticism,
men so absorbed in pursuing lofty ideals that they did not (want) to see
women at their side. After the overthrow of the monarchy and all
traditional sociopolitical categories, the old and dusty Ancien Régime
had to give way to a new social model, in which women of all social
classes would have to abandon freedom, politics, and culture (which, in
any case, had always been reserved for nobles only), to return (or
remain) to the domestic sphere, as sanctioned by the sexual division of
labor and living environments. Ignored, wounded, betrayed by the
revolution: does this remind you of anything? I think of the postwar
period, I think of the political movements of the second half of the
last century. But we women are not satisfied, and never have been.
Olympe de Gouges was born in 1748 in Montauban, a small town in southern
France. Marie Gouze, as she was called, received a minimal,
low-to-average education (sometimes even portrayed as semi-illiterate).
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, she saw writing as a political
act and made public speech the primary instrument of her revolution:
hers and that of all the women betrayed by the Jacobin Revolution.
Having married very young and under duress, she fled to Paris at the age
of eighteen, marking this turning point in her life with two acts of
both practical and symbolic significance: she chose the name Olympe de
Gouges (Olympe in homage to her mother, de Gouges as a "noble"
expression of her surname) and, likely lying, declared herself a widow
(a piece of information provided by the Historical Dictionary of the
French Revolution, reported by scholar Natalia Caprili). Whether she was
actually a widow or not, in the French capital she presented herself as
such, choosing never to marry again. She thus left the domestic sphere,
and did so in such a disruptive way that her son, to whom some of her
last thoughts would be directed, disowned her. In any case, her
resourcefulness paid off: in Paris, de Gouges lived in an exceptional
political, cultural, and artistic context, frequented the Sociétés des
femmes (women's groups of politically active women), became interested
in theater, and became an activist, writer, and playwright-a creativity
entirely dedicated to political goals.
De Gouges is a proto-feminist and an abolitionist. Her thought did not
reach the level of analysis we would today call "intersectionality,"
but, even without finding a synthesis in intersectional complexity, her
intentions were already moving in that direction: the existence of
slaves (both male and female) in the French colonies was a clear
contradiction to the proclamation of so-called universal rights; the
existence of women, excluded from many rights even in their homeland,
was another clear contradiction-we were already the Unexpected Subject,
to quote Carla Lonzi again. Therefore, even though in her thinking the
questions of gender and race (two terms I use anteliteram) did not
interpenetrate, de Gouges deserves credit for having raised them-and for
having done so publicly. You, who read this, probably admire her. But de
Gouges was, after all, a woman who lived in late eighteenth-century France.
Even after the Revolution, women remained half citizens: they had the
duty to pay taxes and were subject to the law, but they had no political
rights to vote or stand for election - in some phases of those troubled
years they could not even attend the discussions of institutional
political assemblies. In this context of discrimination, not only had de
Gouges, as a citizen, dared to criticize the dictatorial drift of the
Jacobins, and Robespierre in particular, earning herself the title of
"enemy of the Republic," but as a woman, she persisted in speaking out
publicly, demanding citizenship rights for all. But the revolutionaries
did not question the existence of hierarchies, authority, or repression:
power remained, and must be kept in male hands.
Obstinate or resigned? Shout louder or remain silent forever? To quote
Natalia Caprili and her "Cittadine di carta," de Gouges "uses writing as
a surrogate for citizenship," that is, she uses writing as an
alternative form of political participation, exercised outside of
institutions or organized male groups and therefore not subject to the
concessions, limitations, and prohibitions imposed by men.
On August 26, 1789, the Constituent Assembly promulgated the Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Of man and of the citizen.
Women are excluded linguistically, formally, and substantially, erased
from a universal subject that is not universal-and in fact, full
citizenship is not envisaged for them, since they lack fundamental
political rights. Thus, in 1791, de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. The sisterhood, even
unintentional, was already powerful, and on the other side of the
English Channel, the proto-feminist British Mary Wollstonecraft was
beginning work on another A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792),
which we will discuss next month.
But let's return to de Gouges's France. The 1791 Declaration does not
simply propose an extension of men's rights to women: it is not a matter
of copying the 1789 Declaration by replacing the word "man" with "woman"
and declining the entire text in the feminine. De Gouges's Declaration
is much more; it is a reformulation that includes everyone, an original
and substantial political and philosophical reworking.
An interesting example is Article 4, on liberty. In 1789, men wrote:
"Liberty consists in the power to do everything that does not harm
others: thus, the exercise of each man's natural rights has as its only
limits those that ensure the enjoyment of those same rights by other
members of society. These limits can be determined only by law." Thus, a
reformulation of the famous Enlightenment maxim "my liberty ends where
yours begins." A concept of liberty that seems closer to tolerance and
mutual forbearance than to harmony and community life, as if individuals
could enjoy spheres of freedom only on condition that these spheres do
not touch, as if the possibility of being free together-and, I would
argue, only together-did not exist. These limits were already clear to
de Gouges, who in Article 4 rephrases it: "Freedom and justice consist
in giving back to others what belongs to them; thus, the exercise of
women's natural rights has as its only limit the perpetual tyranny that
man opposes to her; this limit must be reformed by the law of nature and
reason." Therefore, there is no freedom without redistribution and
questioning the system: freedom exists only together with justice.
Freedom belongs to all-or it does not exist. And while men look to one
another to establish and mark the boundary that makes them respectful or
usurpers, they forget that by drawing their boundaries so "freely" they
pierce the bodies of women. For Olympe de Gouges, ethical and political
reference points are not only the (fallible) law of men and human
institutions, but also Nature and Reason, but also the Nation, which "is
Man and Woman together." Nature, Reason, and Nation are beacons that
illuminate the conscience, guiding it toward ethics, politics, and the
common good.
Entangled in life and not just in fervent ideologies, marked by a father
who never recognized her, de Gouges does not fail to justify her demands
by also referring to the concreteness of embodied life: "The free
communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious
rights of women, since this freedom ensures the legitimacy of fathers
with respect to their children. Every citizen can therefore freely say,
'I am the mother of a child who belongs to you'" (Article 11).
The "free communication of thoughts and opinions" is a precious right,
it is true, and de Gouges will pay dearly for it.
Olympe de Gouges was guillotined in 1793 for speaking out against the
execution of Louis XVI, for addressing her Declaration to Queen Marie
Antoinette, and, above all, for failing to take a Jacobin stance. Close
to the Girondists, she was accused of being a counterrevolutionary and
pro-monarchist. Since there was insufficient evidence to incriminate
her, the focus was on the political ideas she had expressed publicly,
particularly in her work, The Three Urns. But she was also punished "for
forgetting the virtues befitting her sex and for meddling in the affairs
of the Republic," as a French politician commented upon her death sentence.
"No one should be persecuted for their opinions, even fundamental ones.
If a woman has the right to ascend the scaffold, she must also have the
right to ascend the[political]tribune" (Article 10). De Gouges ascended
the scaffold, laying a foundation for us, decades later, to ascend the
tribune.
Serena Arrighi
Germinal Carrara Group
https://umanitanova.org/una-rivoluzione-nella-rivoluzione-olympe-de-gouges-una-filosofa-al-mese/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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