Contr'un

L’Opinion des Femmes, 1848-1849

The letter from Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon that I just posted appeared in French in L’Opinion de Femmes, a radical feminist journal edited by Deroin and Désirée Gay. The entire run of the paper can be found at Gallica, tucked away in one of the volumes of Les Révolutions du XIXe Siècle. L’Opinion des Femmes is great stuff, with material by Deroin, Gay, Jean Macé, C. F. Chevé, and “Jeanne Marie” (probably Jeanne-Marie-Fabienne Poinsard, aka Jenny d’Héricourt.) The beginnings of the feud between Deroin and Proudhon is documented. Expect to see a lot of translations from this paper over the […]
Black and Red Feminism

Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon, January 1849

[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 […]
Black and Red Feminism

Séverine, Liberty—Equality—Fraternity

from NOTES OF A TROUBLE-MAKER Séverine (Caroline Rémy de Guebhard) ____ LIBERTY — EQUALITY — FRATERNITY Liberty? That night, on the asphalt beach that dominates the view from my window, some human wreckage, a father, mother, and two babies, had washed up on a bench. From the heights where, much despite myself, I glide, one could distinguish nothing but a pile of gray flesh and soiled rags, from which emerged, here and there, an arm, a leg, with a movement slow and painful as a crushed crab’s leg They slept, clutching one another, huddled in one pile, from habit, as […]
Contr'un

Black and Red Feminism from 19th Century France

I’m gathering material for a fairly major foray into the works of 19th century French feminists, including completing the translations of some of the responses to Proudhon. But every major foray has to start with some exploratory expeditions, and I’ve gathered up a first selection of work by Jeanne Deroin and Andre Leo to plug the project at the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair this weekend. Most of the material has appeared on this blog before, but this is the first time I’ve collected the various pieces. Read and distribute. Print and sell if you like. Pamphlet edition Pdf for onscreen […]
From the Archives

Joseph Déjacque, “The Human Being” (1857)

I’ve been working to track down the various feminist critiques of Proudhon by his contemporaries, and translate those which have not been translated. I was actually about half-way through a translation of Déjacque’s “On the Human Being, Male and Female,” when I stumbled across this translation that appeared in Lucifer the Lightbearer. I’ll try to post my own translation later , but Jonathan Mayo Crane rendering of the French certainly captures the spirit of Déjacque’s assault. Mayo’s translation appeared in two sections, and I’m posting them separately. THE HUMAN BEING. (Letter written to P. J. Proudhon by Joseph Déjacque in […]
The Sex Question

A socialist-feminist document from 1849

[ezcol_2third] FRATERNAL ASSOCIATION OF THE SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS OF BOTH SEXES FOR THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN 1849 —————- DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES In the name of God and the solidarity which links all the member of the great human family; We affirm that women have the same right as men to liberty, equality and fraternity. Liberty, for woman as for man, is the right and the power to develop and exercise freely and harmoniously all his physical, intellectual and moral faculties, without any limit but respect for the rights of each. All liberties are solidary; one cannot undermine any […]