As long as the formula is: man wants and woman shall, we do not live in a state based on
the rule of law but in a state based on the rule of force.
And as long as man is an irresponsible legislator for woman, conditions will essentially remain just as they are now.
[ . . . ]
Women are not asking for a show of mercy, they are not begging for
privileges, they are not begging for charity or alms.
They demand justice.
Any woman bound by laws that others have drawn up without her participation is well within her rights if she refuses to pay taxes. Indeed, in England and America women have already gone ahead and refused to pay them. [ . . . ]
Women are demanding the right to vote because they are tired of oppression, hypocrisy, and degradation; they demand it because they have a right to have their voices heard in the drafting of laws that affect their social status and individual rights. Each class has its particular character and is more familiar with its own circumstances than those who are not subject to the same.
Society says that men represent women.
When did woman transfer that mandate to man?
When did he account for his decisions to her?
Neither the one thing nor the other has ever happened.
If women are not in agreement with this representation, then a claim like the aforementioned one constitutes an insulting social improvisation by men; mockery in the face of actual circumstances. Referring precisely to the same right, the absolute king may claim that he represents his people, or the slaveholder that he represents his slaves. It is an old argument that workers ought to be represented by their employers; but this argument has failed to convince workers, who have vigorously rejected this representation. And women are supposed to accept it? Nevermore!
Women demand the right to vote because any class that does not share in political life is oppressed; over the course of time, however, participation in political affairs must necessarily result in equality before the law. The classes that are not allowed to exercise the right to vote are controlled by the other classes that are free to do so. This principle has always been accepted so unanimously by all the liberal parties that its denial vis-à-vis women is almost incomprehensible. [ . . . ]
The logic of politics is absolute.
Either a people is sovereign and consequently women are as well,
or all of us are subject to a lord and king.
We can only revert to despotism or move forward towards a purely democratic state, which accepts the basic principle that, as part of the sovereign people, women have an inviolable claim to full equality with regard to civil and social rights.
I acknowledge nothing that others do not acknowledge in me as well. There is no freedom of men if there be no freedom of women.
If a woman cannot bring her will to bear, then why should a man be allowed to do so?
If each woman has her own tyrant under the law, then the tyranny that men experience at the hands of other men leaves me cold. One tyrant simply serves for another.
And why do women so patiently tolerate this lack of the most natural of all rights?
Very simple: They have to, because they have no power to obtain these rights by force. [ . . . ]
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