Editing Marquis de Condorcet (section)

== Gender equality ==

Condorcet's work was mainly focused on a quest for a more egalitarian society. This path led him to think and write about gender equality in the Revolutionary context. In 1790, he published "''Sur l'admission des femmes au droit de cité''" ("On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship") in which he strongly advocated for women's suffrage in the new Republic as well as the enlargement of basic political and social rights to include women. One of the most famous [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinkers at the time, he was one of the first to make such a radical proposal.

'The rights of men stem exclusively from the fact that they are sentient beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning upon them. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily also have the same rights. Either no member of the human race has any true rights, or else they all have the same ones; and anyone who votes against the rights of another, whatever his religion, colour or sex, automatically forfeits his own.'<ref name=Lukes/>{{rp|157}}

Like fellow [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinker [[Rousseau|Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] in his book ''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]] ou De l'Education'' (1762), Condorcet identified education as crucial to the emancipation of individuals. However, where Rousseau endorsed a conservative notion of denying women education and equal rights on account of keeping them tied to the domestic sphere where [according to him] they belonged,<ref>{{Citation |title=Jean–Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762) |date=1762 |url=https://revolution.chnm.org/d/470 |access-date=2024-03-18}}</ref> Condorcet refused to acquit the inequality between men and women to natural disposition. Instead, he believed that the provision of education to women on par with the education provided to men was the pathway to establishing gender equality. He stated: "I believe that all other differences between men and women are simply the result of education".<ref>{{cite book|title=Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory|date=1994|publisher=Edward Edgard Publishing|last1=and Iain McLean|first1=Fiona Hewitt}}</ref>

Condorcet's whole plea for gender equality is founded on the belief that the attribution of rights and authority comes from a false assumption that men possess reason and women do not. He even goes on to argue that women possess their own form of reason that is different from their male compatriots but by no means lesser however this is nonetheless an artificial difference: "There is more truth in this observation, but it still proves nothing since this difference is caused, not by nature, but by education and society..."<ref>{{Citation |title=On giving Women the Right of Citizenship (1790) |date=1994-01-01 |work=CONDORCET |pages=335–340 |url=https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781781008119/book-part-9781781008119-34.xml |access-date=2024-03-18 |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |doi=10.4337/9781781008119.00034 |isbn=978-1-78100-811-9 |editor-last1=McLean |editor-last2=Hewitt |editor-first1=Iain |editor-first2=Fiona }}</ref>

His views on rights that must be afforded to women were not limited to education and citizenship but also social freedoms and protections that included the right for women to plan their own pregnancies, provision of access to birth control, and men's obligation to take responsibility for the welfare of children they have fathered, both legitimate and illegitimate and women's right to seek divorce. He also advocated for the criminalization of rape, declaring that it “violates the property which everyone has in her person”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Condorcet |first=Jean-Antoine-Nicolas De Carit |title=Oeuvres. Publiées par A. Condorcet O'Connor et F. Arago; Tome 10 |publisher=BiblioBazaar |year=1968 |isbn=978-0274483563 |publication-date=Aug 27, 2016}}</ref>

Scholars{{Who|date=January 2018}} often disagree on the true impact that Condorcet's work had on pre-modern feminist thinking. His detractors{{Who|date=January 2018}} point out that, when he was eventually given some responsibilities in the constitutional drafting process, his convictions did not translate into concrete political action and he made limited efforts to push these issues on the agenda.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Condorcet: le seul et premier féministe du 18ème siècle?|last=Pappas|first=John|year=1991|pages=430–441}}</ref> Some scholars{{Who|date=January 2018}} on the other hand, believe that this lack of action is not due to the weakness of his commitment but rather to the political atmosphere at the time and the absence of political appetite for gender equality on the part of decision-makers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Le Feminisme pendant la Revolution Francaise|date=2007|page=341 |last1=Devance|first1=Louis}}</ref> Along with authors such as [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert|d'Alembert]] or [[Olympe de Gouges]], Condorcet made a lasting contribution to the pre-feminist debate.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Comparative Analysis of the Women's Movement in the United States and France|url=https://www.bakerinstitute.org/students/french-institute-of-international-relations/|date=2010|publisher=The Baker Institute for Public Policy, [[Rice University]]|last1=Robinson|first1=Page}}</ref>{{According to whom|date=January 2018}}