François Poullain de la Barre (1647–1725)

François Poullain (or Poulain) de la Barre was born in Paris to a wealthy Catholic family. As a younger son, he was destined by his parents for a career in the church. He earned a bachelor’s degree in theology at the Sorbonne at age 19 in 1666 and became a proponent of Cartesian philosophy. After leaving the university, he taught literature and wrote a textbook on translating Latin into French, published anonymously in 1672. Convinced of the injustice of the subjection of women, he began writing texts that denounced sexism, prejudice, and inequality. In 1673, he published the first of his three feminist treatises, De l’égalité des deux sexes (On the Equality of the Two Sexes), using logic to make the argument that the unequal status of women had no natural basis, but proceeded from cultural prejudice. It was quickly followed by De l’éducation des dames (The Education of Ladies) and De l’excellence des hommes, contre l’égalité des sexes (On the Excellence of Men, Against the Equality of the Sexes), which ridiculed patriarchal attitudes. After publishing these works, Poullain returned to theology and was ordained a priest. In 1688, however, he converted to Protestantism. This meant that he had to go into exile from France, and he settled in Geneva, Switzerland. There he continued to publish and teach, and in 1690 he married Marie Ravier, with whom he had two children. Poullain de la Barre was the author of the famous maxim, "L’esprit n’a pas de sexe" ("The mind has no sex"), cited by Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex in 1949. Although Poullain's works were well-received in his lifetime, they later fell into obscurity before being rediscovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale (French National Library) in 1902 by Henri Piéron.