The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir — Read

The Revolution might have been expected to change the fate of woman. It did nothing of the kind. This bourgeois revolution respected bourgeois institutions and values; and it was waged almost exclusively by men. It must be pointed out that during the entire ancien régime working-class women as a sex enjoyed the most independence. A woman had the right to run a business, and she possessed all the necessary capacities to exercise her trade autonomously. She shared in production as linen maid, laundress, burnisher, shopgirl, and so on; she worked either at home or in small businesses; her material independence allowed her great freedom of behavior: a woman of modest means could go out, go to taverns, and control her own body almost like a man; she is her husband's partner and his equal. She is oppressed on an economic and not on a sexual level. In the countryside, the peasant woman plays a considerable role in rural labor; she is treated like a servant; often she does not eat at the same table as her husband and sons; she toils harder and the burdens of maternity add to her fatigue. But as in old farming societies, since she is necessary to man, he respects her for it; their goods, interests, and concerns are shared; she enjoys great authority in the home. From within their difficult lives, these women could have asserted themselves as individuals and demanded their rights; but a tradition of timidity and submission weighed on them: the Estates-General cahiers record an insignificant number of feminine claims, limited to "Men should not engage in trades that are the prerogative of women. " And it is true that women are found alongside their men in demonstrations and riots: they are the ones who go to Versailles to find "the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's little boy. "* But it is not the people who led the Revolution and reaped its fruits. As for bourgeois women, a few rallied ardently to the cause of freedom: Mme Roland, Lucile Desmoulins, and Théroigne de Méricourt; one of them, Charlotte Corday, significantly influenced the outcome when she assassinated Marat. There were a few feminist movements. In 1791, Olympe de Gouges proposed a "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" equivalent to the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," demanding that all masculine privileges be abolished. In 1790 the same ideas are found in Motion de la pauvre Javotte (Poor Javotte's Motion) and in other similar lampoons; but in spite of Condorcet's support, these efforts are abortive, and Olympe perishes on the scaffold. In addition to L'Impatient, the newspaper she founded, a few other short-lived papers appear. Women's clubs merge for the most part with men's and are taken over by them. On Brumaire 28, 1793, when the actress Rose Lacombe, president of the Society of Republican and Revolutionary Women, along with a delegation of women, forces the doors of the Conseil Général, the prosecutor Chaumette pronounces words in the assembly that could be inspired by Saint Paul and Saint Thomas: "Since when are women allowed to renounce their sex and become men?. [Nature] has told woman: Be a woman. Child care, household tasks, sundry motherhood cares, those are your tasks. " Women are banned from entering the Conseil and soon even from the clubs where they had learned their politics. In 1790, the right of the firstborn and masculine privilege were eliminated; girls and boys became equals regarding succession; in 1792 divorce law was established, relaxing strict marital ties; but these were feeble conquests. Bourgeois women were too integrated into the family to find concrete grounds for solidarity with each other; they did not constitute a separate caste capable of forcing their demands: on an economic level, they existed as parasites. Thus, while women could have participated in events in spite of their sex, they were prevented by their class, and those from the agitating class were condemned to stand aside because they were women. When economic power falls into the hands of the workers, it will then be possible for the working woman to gain the capacities that the parasitic woman, noble or bourgeois, never obtained.

During the liquidation of the Revolution woman enjoys an anarchic freedom. But when society is reorganized, she is rigidly enslaved again. From the feminist point of view, France was ahead of other countries; but for the unfortunate modern French woman, her status was determined during a military dictatorship; the Napoleonic Code, which sealed her fate for a century, greatly held back her emancipation. Like all military leaders, Napoleon wants to see woman solely as a mother; but, heir to a bourgeois revolution, he does not intend to demolish the social structure by giving the mother priority over the wife: he prohibits the querying of paternity; he sets down harsh conditions for the unwed mother and the illegitimate child. Yet the married woman herself does not find recourse in her dignity as mother; the feudal paradox is perpetuated. Girls and wives are deprived of citizens' rights, prohibiting them from functions such as the practice of law or wardship. But the unmarried woman enjoys her civil role fully while marriage preserves the mundium. Woman owes obedience to her husband; he can have her confined in cases of adultery and obtain a divorce from her; if he kills the guilty wife when caught in the act, he is excusable in the eyes of the law; the husband, on the other hand, receives an infraction only if he brings a concubine into the home, and this is the only ground that would allow his wife to divorce him. Man decides where they will live, and he has many more rights over the children than the mother; and-except in cases where the woman manages a business-his authorization is necessary for her contracts. Marital power is rigorously exercised, both over the wife herself as a person and over her possessions.