Congrès international du droit des femmes

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The Congrès international du droit des femmes (German International Congress of Women's Rights ) took place between July 25 and August 9, 1878 in Paris, parallel to the World Exhibition . 600 people from eleven countries took part in the first international congress on women's rights. The congress was the first significant feminist action in France. With it, a new level of international networking of women's rights activists emerged. It was decisive for the internationalization of the demands for women's rights in the 19th century.

prehistory

The repression after the revolution of 1848 long hindered the political engagement of French women. It wasn't until the 1860s that the climate relaxed. During this time, from the point of view of those involved in the French women's movement, including leaders Léon Richer and Maria Deraismes , democracy was an imperative for equal rights for women. From this it followed for them, in political crises such as those that occurred in the 1870s, to support liberal republicanism and to put feminist demands aside. They developed the “politics of the breach” (“ la politique de la brèche” ), according to which the “wall” of male privileges should be attacked at its weakest points. For the “brèchistes”, women's political rights were only a distant dream, the demand for which would only provoke unnecessary resistance to more easily achievable civil reforms.

The Swiss women's rights activist Maria Goegg founded the short-lived International Women's Association in 1868 together with the Italian Alaide Beccari , the English Josephine Butler and the German Rosalia Schönwasser .

In 1869, Léon Richer, who was described by Simone de Beauvoir as “the true founder of feminism in France”, established the political magazine Le droit des Femmes . A year later, Richer and Maria Deraismes founded the Association pour le droit des femmes . Richer served as the association's president and editor of the magazine, but it was Deraismes who coordinated activities and kept the magazine running, including through numerous contributions of his own. As a woman, she was not allowed to publish her own political magazine until 1881. The authorities and the conservatives rejected the term "law" in the title of both the magazine and the Association, which is why these are used in Association pour l'avenir de la femme (German Association for the future of women ) and L'Avenir des femmes (German Die Future of Women ) were renamed. Since it was feared that women voters would vote conservatively and thus endanger the republic, the Association deleted the demand for political rights for women from its program in the 1870s. Instead, they called for equality within marriage, equal morals for all, reintroduction of divorce, the gradual introduction of women into civil life, and equal educational opportunities for women and men.

L'Avenir des Femmes was discontinued during the Franco-German War and was only published again from 1872, but only once a month due to financial difficulties and in 1873 temporarily only every two months. Nevertheless, L'Avenir developed into a major newspaper with an international readership. An international column appeared regularly, providing information on developments in other countries and contributing to the international contacts of Richer and Deraismes. This network gave rise to the idea of ​​an international congress for women's rights in Paris in 1873, which was to take place in autumn that same year. But the unstable political situation after the Franco-German war forced the activists to act politically cautious as they were monitored by the authorities. The election of the conservative Marshal Patrice de Mac-Mahon as French President in the spring of 1873 caused the organizers to postpone the project of an international congress.

In December 1875 the Association pour l'avenir de la femme was banned because of its republican and anti-church tendencies. The republican majority was only secured after the crisis of May 16, 1877 , but the association was not officially approved again until after the women's rights congress. Richer then renamed his magazine again to Le droit des femmes . In addition, Richer and Deraismes took up the idea of ​​the international congress again.

Preparation of the Congress

Hubertine Auclert 1890

It was expected that the World's Fair would raise public awareness of the Congress. The coordination and advertising was done by L'Avenir des Femmes . In January 1878, Richer announced the congress in the newspaper and explicitly invited women's organizations from Italy , the United Kingdom , Switzerland and the USA . A month later, more than a hundred people, including many parliamentarians, supported the project. The congress was prepared by a 27-person initiative committee in which five countries were represented: alongside France, Italy, the USA, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The planning was the responsibility of the purely French organizing committee with 15 members.

In May the organizing committee announced that the congress would be postponed. The search for suitable event rooms has proven difficult. In addition, it was feared that the congress would be drowned in the multitude of events taking place parallel to the world exhibition.

It was thanks to the Swiss suffragette Maria Malliani di Travers , who worked for the Italian feminist magazine La Donna , that the congress came about after all. She offered Richer logistical and financial support. Ultimately, Malliani paid two-thirds of the cost of running the congress and publishing the congress report. However, she did not live to see the congress because she killed herself on June 29, 1878 .

In line with the policy of the breach, Richer and Deraismes excluded the demand for women's suffrage from Congress. They refused to give the French women's rights activist Hubertine Auclert a speech with this demand during the congress. Auclert then withdrew from the initiative committee under protest. Auclert later published the speech, which she was unable to give at the congress.

Implementation of the congress

Paris World's Fair 1878: Palais du Champ de Mars and the head of the Statue of Liberty

600 people attended the congress, including French politicians and 219 official delegates from eleven nations, 106 of them women. The English delegation consisted of 13 people, the American 17, including Julia Ward Howe , who was Honorary Co-President, and Theodore Stanton , the son of women's suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton . The participants also included Elise van Calcar from the Netherlands , Carl and Sophie van Bergen from Sweden and participants from Brazil , Russia and Romania . A German delegation was missing. The invitation to the German women's rights organizations was deliberately sent too late in order to avoid political difficulties. Relations had not yet normalized after the Franco-German war.

Maria Deraismes welcomed the congress participants and declared indivisible women's rights as a goal:

"Ce Congrès a pour objet d'étudier, [...] la question du Droit des Femmes. [...]
Nous n'avons donc rien à dissimuler; nous nous garderions de prendre des synonymes affaiblis, sachant que c'est diminuer les choses que d'en atténuer l'expression.
Le droit es intégral; il ne se fractionne ni ne se divise. »

“This congress aims to deal with the [...] question of women's rights. [...]
We have nothing to hide; we should be careful not to use softer synonyms, knowing that doing so weakens what we are trying to express.
The right is a whole; it can neither be restricted nor divided. "

The opening address was given by the Italian women's rights activist Anna Maria Mozzoni . The event was divided into five sections: history, education, economics, morality and law. Only a quarter of the 40 speakers came from abroad, including four each from the United States and the United Kingdom and three from Italy. In line with Richer's wishes, women's suffrage was not on the congressional agenda, but other controversial issues were raised, including state regulation of prostitution and double standards in this regard, equal pay for equal work, domestic work policy , government support for mothers , unionization and the link between war and women's oppression. In the final resolution, the congress participants called for the absolute equality of the two sexes ("l'égalité absolue des deux sexes").

A permanent international cooperation was planned. A committee located in Paris was proposed for this purpose, which should consist of the Americans Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone , Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and the American Theodore Stanton. Because of the instability of the Third Republic , this plan was not carried out, but the idea of ​​an international feminist organization survived and was finally implemented in 1888 with the International Council of Women .

  • Congress participants

  • Maria Deraismes

  • Léon Richer

  • Anna Maria Mozzoni

  • Julia Ward Howe

  • Elise van Calcar

  • Maria Goegg

effect

The published conference volume was widely circulated and became a historical reference for future generations. The exchange during the congress made it clear that the organizational dynamics of the struggle for women's emancipation no longer lay internationally with French women. The American women's rights activists developed into the leading international activists.

After the Congress, Theodore Stanton conducted a survey on the status of women in Europe. To this end, he collected material from 1880, which he published in 1884 under the title The Woman Question in Europe: A Series of Original Essays . Many of the contributors had attended the 1878 convention.

literature

  • Patrick Kay Bidelman: Pariahs stand up! The founding of the liberal feminist movement in France, 1858-1889 (=  Contributions in women's studies . Volume 31 ). Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1982, ISBN 0-313-23006-4 .
  • Congrès International du Droit des Femmes Ouvert à Paris le 25 Juillet 1878, clos le 9 Août Suivant: Actes-Compte-Rendu des Séances Plénières . Auguste Ghio, Paris, Ile-de-France 1878 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019]).
  • Annette Keilhauer: Internationalization or dialogue de sourds. Negociations transnationales autour du premier Congrès international des femmes de 1878 . In: Patrick Farges, Anne-Marie Saint-Gille (ed.): Le premier féminisme allemand (1848–1933). Un mouvement social de dimension international . Presses Univ. Septentrion, 2013, ISBN 978-2-7574-0499-7 , pp. 131–146 ( google.de [accessed April 14, 2019] version of the lecture available here ).
  • Karen M. Offen: European feminisms 1700–1950. A political history . Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA 2000, ISBN 0-8047-3419-4 , pp. 151-154 .
  • Leila J. Rupp: Transnational Women's Movements . In: European History Online (EGO) . June 16, 2011 ( d-nb.info [accessed April 14, 2019]).
  • Ulla Wikander, Marilyn J. Boxer: Women's Early Transnationalism and Independent Feminist Congresses, 1868-1915 . Alexander Street, Alexandria, VA 2014 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019] First edition: 1998).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bidelman 1982, p. 104.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Karen M. Offen: European feminisms 1700–1950. A political history . Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA 2000, ISBN 0-8047-3419-4 , pp. 151-154 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Annette Keilhauer: Internationalization ou dialogue de sourds. Negociations transnationales autour du premier Congrès international des femmes de 1878 . In: Patrick Farges, Anne-Marie Saint-Gille (ed.): Le premier féminisme allemand (1848–1933). Un mouvement social de dimension international . Presses Univ. Septentrion, 2013, ISBN 978-2-7574-0499-7 , pp. 131–146 ( google.de [accessed April 14, 2019] version of the lecture available here ).
  4. ↑ Patrick Kay Bidelman: Pariahs stand up! The founding of the liberal feminist movement in France, 1858-1889 (=  Contributions in women's studies . Volume 31 ). Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1982, ISBN 0-313-23006-4 , pp. 74-75 .
  5. ↑ Bidelman 1982, p. 91.
  6. ↑ Patrick Kay Bidelman: Pariahs stand up! The founding of the liberal feminist movement in France, 1858-1889 (=  Contributions in women's studies . Volume 31 ). Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1982, ISBN 0-313-23006-4 , pp. 78 .
  7. ↑ Bidelman 1982, pp. 94-95.
  8. ↑ Bidelman 1982, p. 97.
  9. ↑ Bidelman 1982, pp. 99-100.
  10. ↑ Patrick Kay Bidelman: Pariahs stand up! The founding of the liberal feminist movement in France, 1858-1889 (=  Contributions in women's studies . Volume 31 ). Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1982, ISBN 0-313-23006-4 , pp. 96 .
  11. ↑ Bidelman 1982, p. 100.
  12. ↑ Hubertine Auclert: Le Droit politique des femmes, question qui n'est pas traitée au congrès international des femmes . Paris 1878.
  13. ↑ a b c d e Ulla Wikander, Marilyn J. Boxer: Women's Early Transnationalism and Independent Feminist Congresses, 1868-1915 . Alexander Street, Alexandria, VA 2014 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019] First edition: 1998).
  14. ↑ Patrick Kay Bidelman: Pariahs stand up! The founding of the liberal feminist movement in France, 1858-1889 (=  Contributions in women's studies . Volume 31 ). Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 1982, ISBN 0-313-23006-4 .
  15. ↑ Bidelman 1982, p. 105.
  16. ^ Congrès International du Droit des Femmes Ouvert à Paris le 25 Juillet 1878, clos le 9 Août Suivant: Actes-Compte-Rendu des Séances Plénières . Auguste Ghio, Paris, Ile-de-France 1878, p. 8–12 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019]).
  17. ^ Congrès International du Droit des Femmes Ouvert à Paris le 25 Juillet 1878, clos le 9 Août Suivant: Actes-Compte-Rendu des Séances Plénières . Auguste Ghio, Paris, Ile-de-France 1878, p. 14 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019]).
  18. ^ Congrès International du Droit des Femmes Ouvert à Paris le 25 Juillet 1878, clos le 9 Août Suivant: Actes-Compte-Rendu des Séances Plénières . Auguste Ghio, Paris, Ile-de-France 1878, p. 213 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019]).
  19. ^ Congrès International du Droit des Femmes Ouvert à Paris le 25 Juillet 1878, clos le 9 Août Suivant: Actes-Compte-Rendu des Séances Plénières . Auguste Ghio, Paris, Ile-de-France 1878 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed April 14, 2019]).