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Olympe De Gouge's Declaration Of The Rights Of Woman

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The Declaration of the Rights of Man was approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26, 1789. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was a statement to the aristocracy about the publics despise for specific policies and corruption within the current government. The French Assembly set forth these rights to contest the laws and policies of previous governments. Whereas, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman was written by Olympe De Gouges in 1791. Within the Gouges Father’s play, Les Droits de la Femme, it was stated that the Declaration of Rights of Man did not include women. The Declaration of the Rights of Woman was written to protest male-female inequality. She stated that women were equal to men in society therefore should be entitled to the same rights. …show more content…

The public strongly disagreed with the prior absolute government. The Declaration of the Rights to Man solely focused on founding a list of rights for the “general public”. Yet, de Gouge’s Declaration of the Rights to Woman explicitly draws attention to the glaring flaw, that woman were not included within these rights. She believed woman are equal to men and desire to obtain the same rights. De Gouge stated, “he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of it intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it”. She states that the Declaration of the Rights of Man has allowed sex to be superior to intellectual thought, wanting to just claim their rights, while not focusing on the larger idea of the Revolution. The Revolution would be viewed as successful without the documentation of de Gouge. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, while weak,

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