Translation:Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
To be decreed by the National Assembly in its last sessions or in those of the following legislature.
Preamble. The mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives[1] of the nation, ask to be constituted in a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt for the rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, they have resolved to expose in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of woman, in order that this declaration, constantly present to all members of the social body, recall to them ceaselessly their rights and duties, in order that the acts of female power, and those of male power, by being able to be at each instant compared with the aim of every political institution, be more respected, in order that the complaints of the female citizens, founded henceforth on simple and incontestable principles, turn always to the maintenance of the constitution, good morals, and to the happiness of all.
In consequence, the superior sex in beauty as in courage, during maternal suffering, recognises and declares, in presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.
First article. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions can only be founded on common utility.
II. The aim of all political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of Woman and Man: these rights are liberty, property, security, and above all resistance to oppression.
III. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation, which is only the reunion of Woman and Man: no body, no individual, can exercise authority that does not emanate expressly from it.
IV. Liberty and justice consist in rendering others all that belongs to them; thus the exercise of the natural rights of woman does not have bounds other than the perpetual tyranny that man opposes to it; these bounds must be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.
V. The laws of nature and reason forbid all actions harmful to society: all that is not forbidden by these laws, sage and divine, cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do what they do not order.
VI. The Law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male Citizens must take part personally, or through their representatives, in its formation; it must be the same for all: all the female and male citizens, being equal in its eyes, must be equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacities, & without other distinctions than those of their virtues and talents.
VII. No woman is excepted; she is accused, arrested, & detained in the cases determined by the Law. Women obey, like men, this rigorous Law.
VIII. The law should only establish punishments strictly and evidently necessary, & no one can be punished but by virtue of a Law established and promulgated before the crime and legally applied to women.
IX. Any woman being declared guilty, all rigor is exercised by the Law.
X. No one should be disquieted for his most fundamental opinions, woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have that to mount the Tribune; provided that her manifestations do not trouble the public order established by the Law.
XI. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, since this liberty assures the legitimacy of fathers towards their children. Every female Citizen can thus say freely, I am mother of a child that belongs to you, without a barbaric prejudice forcing her to dissimulate the truth; save that she respond to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by the Law.
XII. The guarantee of the rights of woman and of the female Citizen necessitates a major utility; this guarantee must be instituted for the advantage of all, & not for the particular utility of those to whom it is entrusted.
XIII. For the maintenance of the public force[2], and for the expenses of administration, the taxations of woman and man are equal; she has a part in all the corvées, all the painful tasks; she must thus have the same part in the distribution of places, employments, offices, dignities, and industry.
XIV. The female and male Citizens have the right to certify by themselves, or by their representatives, the necessity of public taxation. The female Citizens can only adhere to it by the admission of an equal division, not only in wealth, but even in public administration, and in determining the quota, basis, collection, and duration of the tax.
XV. The mass of women, united by taxation with that of men, has the right to demand an account, from every public agent, of his administration.
XVI. Every society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, does not at all have a constitution; the constitution is null, if the majority of individuals who compose the Nation, have not cooperated in its writing.
XVII. Property belongs to both sexes joint or separate; it is for each an inviolable and sacred right; no one can be deprived of it as true patrimony of nature, if this is not when public necessity, legally certified, evidently demands it, and under the condition of a just and preceding indemnity.