Louise Michel Quotes on Feminism and Sexual Equality
by 33 
“Men, their declarations notwithstanding, although they appeared to help us, were always content with just the appearance… It convinced me that we women must simply take our place without begging for it. The issue of political rights is dead. Equal education, equal trades… that is what was real in our program… Evolution is ended, and now revolution is necessary, or the butterfly will die in its cocoon.”
“I… reject[ed] all thoughts of marriage. There are enough tortured women in this world without my becoming another one.”
“I have always looked upon marriage without love as a kind of prostitution.”
“I have often noticed that when I sent a periodical material signed Louise Michel it was a hundred to one it wouldn’t be printed, but if I signed it Louis Michel or Enjolras, a pseudonym I used, the chances of publication were greater.”
“I salute all those brave women of the vanguard… the old world ought to fear the day when those women finally decide they have had enough. Those women will not slack off. Strength finds refuge in them. Beware of them!… Beware of the women when they are sickened by all that is around them and rise up against the old world. On that day the new world will begin.”
“For many years the human race has been lying in its cocoon with its wings folded; it is now time for humanity to unfold its wings… the first thing that must change is the relationship between the sexes. Humanity has two parts, men and women, and we ought to be walking hand in hand.”
“The strong sex condescends to soothe us by defining us as the beautiful sex. Nonsense! It’s been a damned long time since we women had any justice from the ‘strong’ sex.”
“Men rule with a lot of uproar, while it is women who govern without noise. But governing from the shadows is valueless. If women’s mysterious power were transformed into equality, all the… deceptions would disappear.”
“I never understood why there was a sex whose intelligence people tried to cripple as if there were already too much intelligence in the world. Little girls are brought up in foolishness and are expressly disarmed so that men can deceive them more easily.”
“‘Civilised’ men prepare young girls to be deceived, and then make it a crime for them to fall, but also make it an honour for the seducer.”
“What we do want is knowledge and education and liberty. We know what our rights are, and we demand them. Are we not standing next to you fighting the supreme fight? Are you not strong enough, men, to make part of that supreme fight a struggle for the rights of women? And then men and women together will gain the rights of all humanity.”
“Beyond our tormented epoch will come a time when men and women will move through life together as good companions, and they will no more argue about which sex is superior than races will argue about which race is foremost in the world. It is good to look to the future.”
