Abstract
The law on parity, passed in 2000 and requiring political parties to field 50 % female candidates in all elections, gave rise to fierce debate throughout the years 1990, revealing major disagreements among feminist intellectuals. It was against this backdrop that the debate on " l'universalisme républicain " took hold in French political circles, with constant reference to 1789 : had the universalism of the rights of man and citizen, the legacy of the Enlightenment and the Revolution, laid the foundations for general emancipation, by asserting the rights of an abstract individual, a citizen without distinction of gender, or had it been the Trojan horse of a false universalism, strictly masculine, excluding women from the public sphere ?
In fact, the Revolution never granted women the right to vote (as we know, they wouldn't get it until 1944), but they were nevertheless involved in numerous political activities : popular movements, writing addresses and petitions, publishing pamphlets and brochures. A few women's clubs even existed, until they were closed in October 1793, following a report by Amar on behalf of the Comité de salut public. The political role of these " citoyennes sans citoyenneté " (Dominique Godineau) was therefore real but limited, always regarded with suspicion, sometimes tolerated and sometimes openly repressed.
In this context, we look at the paradoxes (Joan Scott) with which women who openly advocated equal rights had to struggle, particularly in the emblematic case of Olympe de Gouges. Her Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (1791) asserted equal rights by revealing that the political subject is a woman as much as a man, but in doing so, she was led to assert specifically feminine rights. Does the woman who protests against the exclusion of women do so in the name of the universal rights of a non-gendered human being, or by asserting a sexual difference that underpins the demand for equality ? Like Olympe de Gouges, she must both affirm difference and deny it.
Beyond the issue of political rights, the question of access to knowledge, female education and participation in intellectual and literary life was a major issue in the Revolution's struggles on behalf of women, extending the debates of the 18th century. In this respect, the Revolution was marked by a marked increase in the number of women's publications, but also by some hostile, even virulent reactions, such as that of Sylvain Maréchal, whose Projet de loi portant défense d'apprendre à lire aux femmes (1801) elicited responses from two women writers (Marie-Armande Gacon-Dufour and Albertine Clément-Hémery).
