Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen

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Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen

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Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen, women's rights, French Revolution, Declaration of 1789, Constitution of 1791, rights and freedoms, individual rights, women's citizenship, social contract, private law, public sphere, private sphere, equality, women's independence, marital regime, women's education, Condorcet, Pierre de Choderlos de Laclos, constitutional monarchy, human rights, women's rights movement, feminist history, 18th century, citizenship rights, women's empowerment, social justice, political project, women's status, natural rights, inalienable rights, sacred rights, women's identity, female body, social issues, political issues, pamphleteering, women's inertia, legal character, historical context, Marie Antoinette, queen's role, women's inheritance, illegitimate children, freedom of opinion, public force, administrative expenses, equal contributions, corvées, hard tasks, domestic tasks, humanity, nation, citizenship, women's place, social body, female condition, women's rights advocacy, revolutionary texts, historical significance, feminist literature, women's history, revolutionary history, human rights history, Olympe de Gouges' project, women's assembly, call to action, social reform, women's liberation, gender equality, revolutionary ideology, feminist ideology, historical landmark, pioneering text, women's struggle, rights movement, equality before the law, women's rights discourse, feminist discourse, 18th century feminism, revolutionary feminism, pioneering feminism

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Abstract

Analysis of Olympe de Gouges' 1791 Declaration, its relation to the 1789 Declaration and the Constitution of 1791, and its impact on women's rights.

Extract

[...] At the time, the term 'men' referred to humanity as a whole; in fact, the Declaration of 1789 aimed to abolish feudal privileges and servitudes after the Great Fear of the summer of 1789, which therefore also concerned men as well as women. « Woman, wake up: the tocsin of reason is sounding throughout the universe; recognize your rights. The postamble simply states that men and women must have the same rights. The nation cannot therefore be complete unless man and woman are reunited. [...]

[...] This revolt will remain insufficient if we judge it by the content of the Napoleonic Civil Code of 1804 which it pushes back the status of women to a minor position (legal incapacity), under the domination of her husband, as provided for example by article 213: « The husband must provide protection to his wife, the wife obedience to her husband.3 » One can note that the rights proposed by Olympe de Gouges are derived from natural law4. Or, natural law appears in general only as an occasional supplement to the true rules of law, because only positive law is considered as the true law. B. An extension of the Declaration of 1789? [...]

[...] However, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen holds great importance in the fact that it constitutes an advocacy for the universalization of human rights. And it is precisely this universal aspect that will be taken up in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, as can be read in Article « all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Bibliography Works: Bibia Pavard, Florence Rochefort and Michelle Zancarini-Fournel, Don't set us free, we'll take care of it. [...]

[...] Condorcet, On the admission of women to the right of citizenship, In Book, 2012. Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot, Nathalie Zemon-Davis (dir.), Arlette Farge (dir.), History of Women in the West. Vol. III., 16th-18th century, Paris, Tempus/Perrin p. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, Paris, Flammarion p. Joan Scott, The Paradoxical Citizenship - French Feminists and Human Rights, Paris, Albin Michel pages. Philippe Sueur, History of French Public Law, 15th-18th century: The Genesis of the Contemporary State Assertion and Crisis of the State under the Old Regime, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1989. [...]

[...] In this article, Olympe de Gouges introduces a condition of civil law. B. The demand for a differential representation of women's rights in the face of universalism « Mothers, daughters, sisters [ . ] demand to be constituted as a national assembly. Olympe de Gouges does not seem to believe in a real equality between men and women, but rather in a differentiation of their nature. The 'Assembly of Women' (in reference to Aristophane) does not replace the National Assembly, it is the female sex that is put forward. [...]

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