Abstract
The author offers a much-needed summary of the problem French speakers face when translating the phrase “human rights”, the problem being that the use of the masculine generic (“droits de l’Homme [Man’s rights]” standing for humanity) has been increasingly disputed by defendants of a more inclusive writing, who aim to give more visibility to women so that they may benefit more largely from human rights. The chapter traces back the narrative that led the masculine to be seen as the expression of universality in both grammar and law. It also accounts for the way contemporary feminist mobilizations challenge this institutional discourse. For that purpose, the author draws upon Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory (especially his idea of symbolic violence) as well as the concept of performativity.
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Notes
- 1.
Sam Moyn’s effort (Moyn 2010) to differentiate the “Rights of Man” from “Human Rights” (the former being linked to the construction of a closed space within nation-states, as opposed to the latter, which expanded in the late 1970s and is essentially grounded on a global and non-adversarial vision of politics) is compelling, but fails to give justice to the linguistic problem this chapter analyzes.
- 2.
This autumn, the publisher Hatier issued a history textbook for primary school pupils, which was entirely in inclusive writing, a decision that caused quite an uproar among opponents of such an evolution of the Frenchlanguage. See https://www.editions-hatier.fr/article/magellan-et-galilee-questionner-le-monde-ce2-ed-2017-livre-eleve [accessed on January 30, 2018].
- 3.
In 2015 and 2016, I taught Human Rights to law students at the Université du Maine and then at the Université Paris Nanterre. This year, I led a course seminar in the Euro-American program of Sciences Po entitled “Social, Political, Legal Obstacles to Gender Equality”. Researchwise, I organized with Véronique Mottier a workshop on “Law and Gender: Political Agendas?” last summer at the congress of the Association française de science politique. Lastly, I use the fieldwork of ongoing post-doctoral research, funded by the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), on legal firms pro bono work (oriented toward cause lawyering and human rights).
- 4.
As mentioned above, this debate is both about France and about the Frenchlanguage. Hence why the sources used in this chapter are mostly in French. Unless specified otherwise, all the translations into English are from me. It is also noteworthy to precise and admit that my perspective is Western-centered, and that I have no knowledge about the usage of the “parité linguistique” [linguistic parity] in French-speaking African countries.
- 5.
Initially coined by Max Weber in his work on the sociology of world religions, the term of sociodicy has then been reused by Bourdieu. It refers to the theoretical justification, by the ruling class, of its own privileges (see Bourdieu 2001, p. 19).
- 6.
By “gendered vision of politics”, I mean, following the lead of Joan Landes, that “the collapse of the old patriarchal order gave way to an increasingly gendered conception of the public sphere” (Landes 1988, p. 2).
- 7.
http://www.cncdh.fr/fr/linstitution [accessed on June 30, 2017].
- 8.
See Elisabeth Badinter’s reaction when contacted by the organization “Droits humains pour tou-te-s” [Human Rights for All] in order to join their manifesto: “Sorry, but I do not like the Anglo-Saxon [sic] phrase ‘droits humains’, which does not mean anything inFrench.” Retrieved from http://droitshumains.unblog.fr/2015/05/08/elisabeth-badinter-fait-fausse-route/comment-page-1/#comment-24 [accessed on June 30, 2017].
- 9.
The “gauche plurielle” is the left-wing coalition that came to power after the 1997 general elections. It comprised the Socialist Party, the French Communist Party, the Green Party, and the Radicals.
- 10.
http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/994000415/index.shtml [accessed on June 30, 2017].
- 11.
The Coupole is the building where the Académie is located.
- 12.
However, in Quebec, there had been, and still is, a debate between “droits de la personne” [rights of the person] and “droits humains” [human rights]. Many French-speaking academics consider that it is something as a balance of disadvantages: “personne” has the disadvantage that it can include moral persons and “droits humains” has the disadvantage to be an Anglicism (I am grateful to Sylvie Paquerot for drawing my attention on this aspect of the problem).
- 13.
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Bosvieux-Onyekwelu, C. (2019). The Gender of Human Rights: The French Debate Over “les droits de l’Homme”. In: Blouin-Genest, G., Doran, MC., Paquerot, S. (eds) Human Rights as Battlefields. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91770-2_3
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