A group of French feminists are saying no to the rights of man, which they say is sexist and an outdated example of the French exception culturelle.
The Droits Humains collective is calling on France to stop leaving women out of the idea of universal liberties.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
“It is past the time to be debating or arguing about the relevance of this change of terminology, which is self-evident,” the petition says. “This group will disband once the institutions of the French Republic have made tangible changes. Otherwise, it will remain active for as long as necessary.” The group says countries including Spain, Italy and Germany and French-speaking parts of Canada and Switzerland have already dropped use of the term.
“The expression ‘Rights of Man’ makes women, their issues and their battles invisible and we become more and more isolated,” NoE Le Blanc, from the collective, told
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Valentine Zuber, a French specialist in history and human rights, said the term was chosen “specifically and without ambiguity to be male and exclude women”.
The 1791 French constitution made women “passive citizens” excluded from voting, as they were treated in Britain and throughout the Europe at the time (Sweden had allowed taxpaying female members of city guilds to vote in 1718, but rescinded this in its 1771 constitution). French women got the vote in October 1945.
Critics’ stance Critics of the petition argue that the term “Homme” when capitalised denotes mankind, as in everyone. The feminists retort that the capital H is rarely used when written and cannot be distinguished at all when spoken.
The French declaration inspired the United Nations universal declaration of human rights in 1948.
Catherine Coutelle, a Socialist MP, said: “France is the only country that has translated “human rights” as “rights of man” for the United Nations universal declaration.” She said it was a regrettable example of the “French exception”.
“Abandoning the use of this expression would be a step towards ending the discriminatory logic within the French language itself,” Coutelle said. She also regretted the continued and common use of titles such as Madame le Maire and Madame le President, where the masculine noun always takes the masculine article even if the holder of the position is feminine.
Paris’s Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, the first woman to hold the prestigious post, insists on being called the grammatically incorrect Madame la Maire.— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015