I add, lastly, that I feel myself linked with my sex by too close a solidarity ever to be content to see myself abstracted from it by an illogical process. I am a woman—I glory in it; I rejoice if any value is set upon me, not for myself, indeed, but because this contributes to modify the opinion of men with respect to my sex. A woman who is happy in hearing it said: "You are a man," is, in my eyes, a simpleton, an unworthy creature, avowing the superiority of the masculine sex; and the men who think that they compliment her in this manner, are vainglorious and impertinent boasters. If I acquire any desert, I thus pay honor to women, I reveal their aptitudes, I do not pass into the other sex any more than Proudhon abandons his own, because he is elevated by his intellect above the level of foolish and ignorant men; and if the ignorance of the mass of men prejudges nothing against their right, no more does the ignorance of the mass of women prejudge anything against theirs.
You affirm that man and woman do not form true society.
Tell us, then, what is marriage, what is society.
You affirm that the difference of sex places between man and woman a separation of the same nature as that which the difference of races places between animals. Then prove:
That the race is not essentially formed of two sexes;
That man and woman can be reproduced separately;
That their common product is a mixed breed, or a mule;
That their characteristics are dissimilar, apart from sexuality.
And if you come off with honor from this great feat of strength, you will still have to prove:
That to difference of race corresponds difference of right;