France must drop the “sexist” term “rights of man” in favour of “human rights”, a group of feminists said in a campaign launched on Thursday.
In a petition it intends to send to the French government, the Droits Humains collective called for “human rights for all”, and said the term "Droits de l’Homme" should be removed from all official documentation.
They argued that the francophone countries of Canada and Switzerland, along with Germany, Spain and other EU states, have already made the linguistic shift to human rights, as have “les Anglo-Saxons” like Britain.
The expression, however, runs deep in France as it was inscribed on the country’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man at the time of the French revolution.
The group said that while the declaration may have been revolutionary, it was sexist and “specifically and unambiguously designated people of the male gender to the exclusion of women”. » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Thursday, May 21, 2015
