Oh mujer, mujer
- La Citoyenneté. El centro en desplazamiento
GUIDED VISIT IN "La Salpêtrière", PARÍS, 2013
It is one of the last four videos from Citoyenneté, which consists on guided visits to special places in Paris, staging issues in relation to the idea of citizenship and its paradoxes. These visits incorporate a booklet which gives the subtexte of the place and discourse.
The Paris Hôpital Général pour le Renfermement des Pauvres was built in April 1656 by Louis XIV. The first objective was to house the poor and homeless of the city. The hospital was divided into three parts: La Pitié for children, Bicêtre for men, and La Salpêtrière for women. In 1684, the section of La Salpêtrière was enlarged with the creation of a building that served as detention centre for women who had been denounced by their husbands or fathers. Also added was a prison area for prostitutes. The audio of the video is a citation form Olympe de Gouges. She was a French playwright, pamphleteer and politician, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791). This text, which this extract is taken from, was written just two years after the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Her approach was not shared by the men who led the Revolution
«¡Oh women! Women, when will you stop being blinded! What are the advantages of the revolution you had? A more notable disregard, a more visible contempt. [...] If I go futher in this matter, I will go too far and attract the enemy of the newly Rich, who, without reflecting on my good ideas or appreciating my good intentions, will condemn me pitilessly as a woman who has only paradoxes to offer and not problems easy to resolve»