In the current backlash against women and the increasingly unashamed expression of masculinity, it is important to call on men to rally for gender equality, for everyone’s benefit. But long before the idea of being an “ally” was trendy, male figures were already paving the way. There’s no need to feel alone in this struggle, because here is an overview of men with “unlikely engagement”, to use Alban Jacquemart’s term. These men have linked their destinies to those of women. Take (or leave) inspiration as you see fit.
François Poulain de la Barre (1647–1723) – “The mind has no gender.”1
Largely unknown in the French intellectual landscape, Poulain de la Barre actually wrote three feminist treatises that inspired Simone de Beauvoir. He believed there were few or no differences between men and women (in both physical and psychological terms), and those that remained were constructed, and favor women. As a great admirer of Descartes, he promoted the idea that as women were excluded from education (which he believed corrupted), they had easier access to Cartesian common sense. In other words, that which exists within us before it is stifled by prejudices. He therefore encouraged men to strive towards femininity, while advocating equal access to single-sex education. In his view, women should educate themselves in order to become emancipated. Finally, he posits that if the body and mind are separate, then the body, whether female or male, does not influence reason. At that time, it was a radically new idea that men or women could adopt a non-gendered position!
Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783) – “It seems we sense women’s advantages, and we want to prevent them from benefiting from them.”2
D’Alembert, known in particular for his co-authorship of the Encyclopédie alongside Diderot, was also a fervent advocate of equality, even believing women were superior. He was notably the first to try to bring women into the Académie Française, seeking to open four positions for them. He believed that inequalities between men and women stem from a “disastrous, almost murderous education” which prevents them from thinking or truly reasoning. He posits the following hypothesis: knowing full well that women have qualities superior to men (sensitivity, tenderness, and so on), the latter keep them away from any intellectual sphere and power in order to maintain their dominant position.
Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–1794) – “Education and social existence are the cause of this difference between men and women.”3
This Enlightenment thinker wrote several texts on the place of women in society, such as On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship (1790). Condorcet starts from the observation that there are inequalities between men and women, in their living conditions but also in their qualities. However, he suggests that these differences stem from “traditions”, and that the significant educational gap between men and women makes it impossible to draw conclusions about women’s intellectual capacities. These differences are therefore not natural but constructed. He then argued for a reform of women’s education that would lead to political equality (the right to vote and to be elected), and economic independence. Since women, like men, are sentient beings endowed with reason, both must therefore be equal in rights.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) – “Perfect equality, without privilege or power for one sex, and without incapacity for the other.”
British philosopher and liberal economist John Stuart Mill is famous for his pioneering commitment to women’s rights in Victorian England. In 1866, while serving as a Member of Parliament, he submitted a petition supported by suffragists Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson for women’s right to vote, but the petition was rejected. In 1867, he proposed a revision of the electoral law to extend the right to women, but Parliament opposed it again. He published his major work in 1869, The Subjection of Women. In this work, Mill details his vision of inequality between the sexes being not only a “scandalous” injustice affecting “half of humankind”, but also a hindrance to the progress of civilization. He argues that women’s emancipation would bring a “prodigious gain” to all of humanity by unleashing previously stifled talents and perspectives, thus advocating for “perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.”
Léon Richer (1824–1911) – “Women—I have been fighting to defend them for twenty years”5
Simone de Beauvoir considers him to be “the true founder of (Ed – French) feminism.” At a time when women had no access to the economic, political, and legal means to get organized among themselves, Léon Richer created a newspaper, entitled Le Droit des femmes (Women’s Rights). He put together a “banquet for women’s rights”, bringing together a mixed assembly of 60 intellectuals and creating two associations: the Association for Women’s Rights (1870) and the French League for Women’s Rights (1878). Richer firmly believed in the importance of male involvement, especially among politically influential men, to create a mass movement and bring about significant changes in legislation. However, when the movement struggled to gain the momentum he had hoped for, he turned on women, and blamed them for the failure. Many of his female colleagues became increasingly critical of his desire to take the lead in the fight, perpetuating once again the invisibility of women, even in their own struggles.
These experiences teach us that it is always possible to take action to support a cause, even if it is not our own, and even when prevailing attitudes are opposed to it. They also allow us to define the role of ally more precisely: someone who fights alongside us, not in our place. In short, don’t be Léon Richer. Gender equality means considering women as individuals on the same level as men. They are neither inferior, nor divine or sacred as Victor Hugo believed. The challenge then becomes to recognize the right of women to simply be human beings, in all their complexity and normality.
