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L’OPINION DES FEMMES Prospectus The women who understand the greatness of their mission, in the present and in the future, feel deeply that it is for them not only a right, but a duty, to take part in all the acts of social life, and to express their opinion on all the questions that relate to the organization of society. Until now, men alone have ruled the destinies of the human race. Women have been excluded from all the religious and political assemblies, where the great principles on which societies are founded are discussed; and human intelligence, split by the […]

To the members of the commission of the banquet of socialist priests. Citizens, I come to your banquet because women are also priests, and they must have a place in the temple, as in the State and in the family. I come to ask to speak to you, because women are also apostles. Jesus Christ himself called them to apostleship, saying of Mary, who listened to his teaching, to Martha, who criticized her: Mary has chosen the better part. And if Christ, who did not want the light to be hidden under a bushel, allowed women to listen to his […]

[Jeanne Deroin. “Lettre a M. Proudhon.” L’Opinion des Femmes. No. 1, Year 1. January 28, 1849.] Letter to Proudhon. Monsieur, I know that, preoccupied most especially with questions of political economy, you have not accepted all the consequences of the principles on which our social future rests. You are one of the most formidable adversaries of the principle of equality—a principle which does not allow unjust exclusion and privileges of sex. I know that you do not wish to recognize the right of women to civil and political equality. This right, which contain in it the abolition of all social […]