Let's talk feminism

Origins of the words feminism and feminist

These words hadn’t be invented at the same time. If there are some doubts about the first appearance of the word feminism, the word feminist seems to have been invented by Alexandre Dumas Fils. We find this term in his publication L’Homme-femme, released in 1872. He said himself that it is a neologism but with a bad connotation.

As for the word feminism, it would be from 1837 that it would appear thanks to Charles Fourier. The Nouveau dictionnaire étymologique et historique by the Larousse in 1964 refers to Fourier and this date. Anyway, the word hadn’t be found either in any of his books or important dictionnaries following this date. Moreover, Charles Fourier is dead in 1837, so the authentification of these informations is more difficult. Maybe in the future we will know the truth about the appearance of this word in the unknow pages of Fourier or an other author.

Feminism in some dates

Althought these terms are recents, theideology exists for millenaries! Since the antiquity, aproto-feminisme where the first considerations about the isolation of women would have existed in Athens. The first progress about the condition of the woman had happend thanks to the Pope Innocent III. In 1215, he proclaims that the marriage becomes the union of two desires and not the union of two bodies to prevent forced marriages. During the French Revolution, even if the thoughts of the Enlightenment included an improvement for women, there weren’t many changes. The Declaration of Human Rights was mainly for men than women. But Marie Gouze, more commonly called the Olympe de Gouges, will write the Declaration of Women Rights some years later on the same base than the DWR with some modifications.

She will use the expression « the woman and the man » instead of « the man ». With a bit of irony, she will put the women equal to the men like « the woman is born free and still be equal to the man in law ». She affirms that the women won’t have any special rights. The revolution of 1848 will give the right to work for women. During the first world war, women have been called to help their contry to work by cultivated fields, in arming factorie or else as nurse but without significant evolution in France after the war. However, the second world war brings main changements : 21st april 1944, the General Charles de Gaulle will give the right to vote for women.

With this obtain, the cause of feminism will be on the rise. The legal validation of the abortion in 17th january through Simone Veil is one of the principal advances in the last decades. More recently, the movement #BalanceTonPorc on the social networks defending the respect of the feminine body.

Feminism is an ideology existing for centuries, a long time in the shadows but not useless, since two centuries, women get litte by little the right that she should have always had.