June 9, 2025

The Sex Question

In the writings of the 19th and early 20th century, the questions we associate with feminism were addressed under a variety of labels, one of the most economical of which was “the sex question,” which referred, in practice, to a wide range of question concerning sex, gender, sexuality, etc. The texts collected here cover a wide range of “women’s issues.” The current collection includes material previously contained in the following archives: La Frondeuse (Black and Red Feminist History), Anarchy and the Sex Question and A Beautiful Nihilist.

Jenny P. d’Hericourt, “Morality According to the Sexes” (1869)

MORALITY ACCORDING TO THE SEXES BY JENNY P. D’HERICOURT Dear reader, let us for a moment listen to a conversation between wife and husband: Wife—“Men continue to be absurd, and to affirm the contrary of […]

Jenny P. d’Hericourt to “The Agitator” (June 12, 1869)

Madame d’Hericourt, having returned from New York, writes full of interest and enthusiasm concerning her plan for a “Universal League of Women.” She will have something to say of this in future numbers of […]

La Femme, “Madame Jenny P. d’Hericourt” (1869)

MADAME JENNY P. d’HERICOURT Dear Agitator: You ask me the biography of Madame Jenny P. d’Hericourt! I consent only to draw the great lines of her eventful life, those which can be interesting to those […]

Jenny d’Hericourt, “Woman’s Rights in France” (1869)

WOMAN’S RIGHTS IN FRANCE LETTER FROM MADAME JENNY P. D’HERICOURT Dear Agitator: I will give you a page of history as an answer to a translation on Women’s Rights in Europe, accepted in the Revolution. […]

Society for the Mutual Education of Women, “Response to Satan on the Subject of Mr. Proudhon”

[When George Dairnvaell attacked Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1848, an anonymous member of the Society for the Mutual Education of Women, an organization founded by Jeanne Deroin and Désirée Gay Gay, came to his defense] [Note: […]

Joshua King Ingalls in “The Woman’s Tribune” (1888–1894)

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Joshua King Ingalls (1816 – 1898) [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] An Open Letter. Away out in Idaho a fellow-traveler asked the writer the meaning of her badge, and when […]

Eugène Pottier, “Already!” (dedicated to Paule Mink)

ALREADY! Eugène Pottier To the citizen Paule Mink. At the break of day, the snow falls, Swirled by the air; A sheet of dove’s feathers Covers the deserted cobblestones. I soon passed that way again, […]

Jenny d’Héricourt, “Appeal to Women” and “Profession of Faith”

[I’ve been working on an anthology of Jenny P. d’Héricourt’s works, combining her two-volume Woman Affranchised with an assortment of other works of feminist philosophy. d’Héricourt was, of course, one of Proudhon’s opponents on the […]

Eugène Stourm, “God, Women and Proudhon”

[Slowly, but surely, I’m assembling the various feminist responses to Proudhon. The pages of L’Opinion des Femmes is rich with that sort of thing, since it was Jeanne Deroin’s primary forum at the time she […]

Désirée Gay in “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

[These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before […]

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