Woman According to Proudhon: A Creature to be Domesticated for the Good of the Nation
- Art d'Histoire
- May 28
- 3 min read
Was the theorist of French-style socialism and anarchism in favour of the political, social, and sexual emancipation of women?
Perhaps his anarchism stopped at the masculine gender...
From Plastic Perfection to Biological Determinism
In 1846, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon set forth an aesthetic in which the perfection of art resided exclusively in the harmony of tones and the purity of lines. These qualities were then intrinsically linked to absolute moral virtues. Art and love merged therein into a mystical idealisation of woman, under the guise of modesty, humility, and chastity.
The foundations were laid: women had no place in Proudhon's public space; as anarchist as he might be, he was conservative on this front and in line with the spirit of his generation. So much so that when he published De la justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Église in 1858, defending his conception of love, several women known as polemicists protested. He responded with a text known by the title Pornocracy, two-thirds of which remained in the form of notes.
The Fear of Emancipation and the Pathologisation of the Intellect
The female figure is determined by her biological condition. Undomesticated, she would be purely instinctive, greedy, and animalistic.
According to this postulate, only a restrictive education allows for the masking of natural instincts to artificially forge the ideal of modesty celebrated by Proudhon.
Woman is dangerous in politics: the active involvement of women in the public sphere, explicitly pointed out during the fall of the Republic in 1848, constitutes an institutional anomaly. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon explicitly targets renowned intellectuals, such as George Sand, Madame de Staël, or Madame Roland, believing that their political and literary influence directly precipitated the decadence of the nation.
Cerebral activity is accused of causing irreversible physiological damage, notably to the reproductive system—a classic notion of the era, defended by doctors and philosophers.
The abandonment of what is considered the only natural and legitimate vocation—gestation and breastfeeding—is perceived as a loss of the original essence, transforming the female intellectual into a repulsive figure, a source of debauchery and perfidy.
Proudhon advocates for the placing of woman under guardianship. The legal autonomy of women is rejected. For the good of the nation, she must remain under masculine authority, whether it be paternal, fraternal, or marital.
Maintaining the balance of the nation requires the confinement of women to the private sphere; her work must be that of a good, docile, and devoted housewife and mother, a condition for maintaining public order.
Equality of rights between men and women is perceived not as social progress, but as an aberration against nature; it would inexorably lead to the downfall of France.
Pornocracy is an essential monument of 19th-century misogynistic literature, in alignment with the beliefs of the majority of his peers, whether scientific or political.
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