"In singling out those women who have had power to soar, from the virago, like Maria Theresia, to those of a gentler type, like the Ninons and the Sévignés, I am authorized in saying that woman, in a state of liberty, will surpass man in all functions of the mind and body which are not the attributes of physical strength.
"Man seems already to foresee this; he becomes indignant and alarmed when women give the lie to the prejudice that accuses them of inferiority. Masculine jealousy has especially broken out against women authors; philosophy has kept them out of academic honors, and has sent them back ignominiously to the household."... (p. 148.)
"What is their existence to-day (that of women)? They exist in privations alone, even in the trades, in which man has encroached on everything, even to the minutest occupations of the needle and the pen, while women are seen employed in the toilsome labors of the field. Is it not scandalous to see athletes thirty years old squatted before a desk, or carrying a cup of coffee with muscular arms, as if there were not women and children enough to attend to the minor details of the counting-room and the household.
"What then are the means of subsistence for women destitute of fortune? The distaff, or else their charms if they have any. Yes, prostitution more or less glossed over is their only resource, which philosophy again contests to them; this is the abject fate to which they are reduced by this civilization, this conjugal slavery which they have not even thought of attacking." (p. 150.)
Fourier bitterly reproaches women authors for having neglected to seek the means whereby to put an end to such a state of affairs, and adds with great reason:
"Their indolence in this respect is one of the causes that have accrued from the contempt of man. The slave is never more contemptible than by a blind submission which persuades the oppressor that his victim was born for slavery., (p. 150)."
Fourier is right, but ... to elevate others is to risk being lost one's self in the crowd; and every one is not capable of this degree of abnegation.
To combat for the right of the weak when men have admitted you to their ranks, is to prepare for yourself a rough way and a heavy cross.
In the first place, you are exposed to the hatred and raillery of men, then half-cultured women corroded by jealousy, invent a thousand calumnies for your destruction; they feign to be scandalized that a woman dare protest against the inferiority and use of her sex; they enter into league with the masters, clamor louder than they and satirize you without mercy.
Now all women are not made to shrug their shoulders in the face of this cohort of morbid minds ... they love peace too well, they lack courage, and they do not care enough for justice; is it not so, ladies?