Deraismes, Marie

(1828-1894)

   feminist

   Born in Paris to a bourgeois republican family, Marie Deraismes was quite well educated. Financially independent, she became a well-known writer, lecturer, and anticlericalist during the 1860s. In 1866, she cofounded the Societé pour la revendication de droits de la femme with paule mink and louise michel. In 1870, she founded the Association pour les droits des femmes, a leading moderate French feminist organization. She collaborated with léon richer, with whom she organized several international congresses and founded the newspaper Le Républican de Seine et Oise. Deraismes, who sought also to gain membership for women in Masonic lodges, has among her writings Le Théâtre chez soi (1863), Auxfemmes riches (1865), Nos Principes et nos moeurs (1867), Les Droits des enfants (1886), and Eve dans l'humanité (1891).