Olympe De Gouges Rights Of Women Essay

During the French Revolution, precisely in 1789 the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the [Male] Citizen was established. The deceleration is composed of seventeen articles each granting equality in most aspects of life. They only problem with this deceleration was that it were only for men. Nowhere throughout any of the articles was anything about women mentioned. To even think about women’s rights during this time was preposterous. Among many one of the notable women who did open up about this was Olympe de Gouges. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of women along with other documents like Les Trois Urnes which led to her arrest and execution in 1793. During the 1700’s women was nothing more than just an object. Their main role was just to be a good wife, reproduce and then take care of the family while men make all decisions (Nash). Gouges was different, she was like a black sheep of her era. Gouges was a woman who defied the odds and stood up for women rights.
In this pamphlet she provides a declaration of the rights of women to parallel the one for men, criticizing the deputies for having forgotten women (Branson). Through this declaration Gouges not only argued for woman’s right but also many other basic human rights. For example, she pleaded against slavery claiming that slavery was founded on greed and blind prejudice, then the death penalty, she also fought of a more equal society and proposed intelligent taxation plans to enable wealth to be more fairly divided. She called for a form of welfare state, trial by jury and reasonable divorce laws to protect women and children from penury (Smith). Furthermore, she addressed this pamphlet to the Queen Marie Antoinette. Warning the Queen that she must work for the Revolution or risk destroying the monarchy altogether (Hunt). Just this alone is enough to consider someone to be a hero. But Gouges accomplish lot more throughout her short