 Rousseau argued that the sexes are neither equal nor unequal, they are different, and should aim at perfecting their differences in order to form a harmonious couple. Poulain’s demand for equality based on similarity was something to be argued against rather than adopted. Though Rousseau’s views on the relations between the sexes were heavily criticized by English feminists such as Wollstonecraft (Reuter 2014), they influenced many French feminists (Bergès 2016). When Olympe de Gouges declares the rights of women during the French Revolution, she does not appeal to the similarity of the sexes, but to their harmonious union, which is fulfilled by all other animals except humans. In her famous Les droits de la femme. A La Reine [The rights of women. To the Queen] (1791), she writes, addressing tyrannical men, 