This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

The Declaration of the Rights of Women

This pamphlet, printed in Paris in November 1792, was written by frustrated female French citizens in order to define their rights in the eyes of the law after being denied a voice in the government for so long. Though the exact identity of the author(s) of this document is unknown, it was printed by L’Imprimerie des muets, or the Printer of the Mutes, which was likely an organization created to give voice to those who had none during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. The epistle is signed by the pseudonym Philaletes, a Greek name meaning “lover of truth”. The majority of the declaration articulates women’s demands for freedom of speech and access to the rights that their male counterparts have long been free to exercise. However, the final page sheds light on what supportive men felt towards the issue of women’s rights at the time and acknowledges the strength and value of women. The title and general organization of the document into seventeen articles makes a direct reference to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen from 1789, which listed the rights of men in the new French Republic.

THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

Translated by Maggie O’Brien & Lily Zenger

FIRST ARTICLE
Women are born, live, and die with the right to speak. They are equal in their ambition in this regard. Distinctions, among them, can only be founded on their more or less great command of speech.
ARTICLE II The goal of all association, with them and among themselves, is the conservation of the right to speak: this right consists of the liberty to speak whatever comes to their mind, of the right to criticize, slander, and express radical ideas; of being assured of not running the risk of being hosed down¹ when they go

1. Original footnote reads, “The history of the Revolution teaches us that some women gathered in a mob around the building where elections were to be be held and quarrelled with all those who approached; the fire department was called, and they hosed them down; then the women disappeared.”

beyond the limits in their rebellion against what is considered normal.
ARTICLE III In women, the principle of speech rests essentially in possessing the necessary organs for this ability. No body, no individual, nothing in the world can prevent a woman from speaking if she is endowed with these organs.
ARTICLE IV Liberty, for women, consists of speaking, until they no longer possess the strength to do so. Therefore, the ability to exercise their natural rights is conserved in this part of the body, until the extinction of their physical abilities.
ARTICLE V No law has the right to prohibit women from speaking, unless they are absolutely debilitated or mute. Outside of these circumstances, no one can force them to be silent.
ARTICLE VI The law, on the subject of women’s right of speech,

can only be the expression of the injustice of their powerlessness in this regard. All women have the right to oppose the creation of this law, as in all other circumstances. This law can only be the same for all, whether it permits or whether it prohibits. All women are equal in the eyes of the law and are equally free to speak, according to the strength of their voice and their more or less developed ability to wield oratory skills.
ARTICLE VII No woman may be accused, arrested or held in jail, for having spoken, for the law cannot prohibit them from doing so, only when it is impossible for her to speak.
ARTICLE VIII Given that it would be to do so, no woman may be questioned for her opinions, even in so far as love is concerned, as long as her opinions do not harm the rights of men.
ARTICLE IX The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, and even the most dear to her heart, since, outside of writing and gestures, she can only communicate them by speaking (which she will always prefer). All women may exercise their rights in this manner,

as should always be the case, as long as it does not have negative repercussions.
ARTICLE X The law, having to establish only strict and obviously necessary punishments, will be useless as long as women limit themselves to speaking and expressing basic and ineffectual opinions, however radical they may be.
ARTICLE XI Everyone being presumed innocent, the law cannot harm women when they lack reason unless they are jeopardizing the safety of the public. If it is proven necessary to stop her, as in the above scenario, all efforts that would aim at forcing her to be sensible, given the impossibility of her bing so, must be severely condemned.
ARTICLE XII The guarantee of the rights of women requires an utmost patience on the part of men. This patience must remain for the advantage of all, and not for the particular benefit of the latter.
ARTICLE XIII In order for men to remain patient,

they must devote themselves to complete apathy. Woe to those who cannot adhere to this state of being; for the difference between men and women, which men depend on, amounts to almost nothing.
ARTICLE XIV All women have the right, or at least are encouraged, to note by themselves and their good male friends, to what extent they can try or use the patience of men for a given period of time.
ARTICLE XV All women have the right, (if only for their own instruction), to ask fellow women, the means that they use to try the patience of men.
ARTICLE XVI Any society in which neither the guarantee of the rights of women nor the art of enraging well established men are secure brings women no enjoyment.
ARTICLE XVII The art of contesting is, for women, a right that is both inherent and imperishable, no woman may be

deprived of it, unless it pleases the Creator to make other women, endowed with a different constitution.

DEDICATION EPISTLE to Female Citizens

Citizens,For too long the Assemblée Nationale has made you wait for the declaration of your rights; it is essential and urgent that they be proclaimed. This is not to say that, until now, some among you have not exercised them with great zeal, at every opportunity. You have been seen constantly circulating among the clubs, putting forth motions, maybe even for some of you, emotions as well; speaking in your homes, in the streets, in the public squares, about public matters, debating the most important questions regarding economic policy, without knowing that which governs your domestic lives; discussing how to have provisions for the fairest price, vexing the merchants; or what is even better, seizing them by force, infiltrating the stores, plundering them; and finally tormenting the men so well that, should this have lasted, you would have infallibly reduced us to famine. It must be acknowledged that you have completed this task well: you have even exceeded it. Because

you will see, in the declaration of your rights, Article X, that there can be no law that prohibits you from speaking and expressing your opinions, no matter how radical they may be, provided that they are not followed by consequences, and the contrary has occurred. Why have you not been made aware of your rights? Why have they not been seen to? Take them; I offer them to you with all the eagerness that a citizen who knows you can, one who knows to appreciate you for your true worth. I am equal, in the eyes of the law, to the most vigorous of you.

PHILALETES

November 1792, the first year of the Republic

View digitized pamphlet

This page has paths:

Contents of this path: