Deroin, Jeanne

(1805-1894)

   feminist

   Born in Paris into a working-class family, Jeanne Deroin spent her youth as an embroiderer. Around 1831, she was drawn, through articles in the Globe, to the Saint-Simonians, attracted particularly by their views on the emancipation of women. under the name Jeanne Victoire, she eventually contributed articles to the Saint-Simonian working women's journal, Femme libre. She married a fellow Saint-Simonian and, especially after the revolution of 1848, wrote and petitioned for broad social reform and even attempted herself to campaign for public office. With Desirée Gay, she founded the Societé d'éducation mutuelle des femmes. In support of women's rights, she rebutted the view of pierre-joseph proudhon that women should be relegated to household activities, and proposed self-governing women's associations. After the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, Deroin went into exile in Great Britain, where she continued to write, publishing two women's almanacs, and to campaign for female emancipation. léon richer published her letter on the problems of children born out of wedlock in his Le Droit des femmes.