What feminism tells us
From the amazons to Olympe de Gouges to the me too, the history of feminism is multiple.
Where does the term feminism
come from ?
Neologism invented by Charles Fourier. Used for the first time by Alexandre Dumas in a pamphlet in 1872 this term refers first of all to men who want to give more power to women. Ten years later, journalist Hubertine Auclert reused it to designate the gender equality movement.
A definition
Feminism
is very diverse because there is a set of feminisms. There is a common struggle, because there is a social, political, economic and symbolic devaluation of women.
"Its history is divided into three periods. The first took place from the 19th to the early 20th century and concerned the right to vote, working conditions and educational rights for women and girls. The second period from 1960 to 1980 dealt with inequality of laws, but also cultural inequalities and questioned the role of women in society. The third period from the late 1980s to the early 2000s is the continuity of the second period and a response to its failure.”
The Amazons
“In Greek mythology, the Amazonses were warriors. They wore trousers, rode horses, fired bows, wielded spears and hatchets, fought and died as heroines. The Greeks regarded the Amazons as the “equals of men”.”
“The woman has the right to climb the scaffold she must also have the right to climb to the tribune” Olympes de Gouges Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizen, Article X.
Born Marie Gouze, she died guillotined in 1793 at the age of 45, because she was part of the French Revolution through her pen. She became the second guillotine woman after Marie-Antoinette. Esteemed as one of the creators of feminism in France. Originally from Montauban, she is the daughter of a writer. At the age of 17, she is already married and has a child. She became a widow a few months later. When she arrived in Paris, she began to publish and write as a self-taught under the name of Olympes de Gouges, formed by her mother’s middle name and her birth name embellished and ennobled. Two years after the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (27 August 1789), it published the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizen in September 1791.
Me too
#metoo is a popular hashtag on the web. Created by a journalist on Twitter, it aims to denounce sexual harassment by freeing women’s speech.