The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man was a revolutionary call for legal equality, representative government, and individual freedom. But the new rights were strictly limited to men; Napoleon tightened further the subordination of French women.
Among those who saw the contradiction in granting supposedly universal rights to only half the population was Marie Gouze (1748-1793), known to history as Olympe de Gouges. The daughter of a provincial butcher and peddler, she pursued a literary career in Paris after the death of her husband. Between 1790 and 1793, she wrote more than two dozen political pamphlets under her new name. De Gouges’s great work was her “Declaration of the Rights of Woman” (1791). Excerpted here, de Gouges’s manifesto went beyond the 1789 Rights of Man. It called on males to end their oppression of women and give women equal rights. A radical on women’s issues, de Gouges sympathized with the monarchy and criticized Robespierre in print. Convicted of sedition, she was guillotined in November 1793.
… Man, are you capable of being just? … Tell me, what gives you sovereign empire to oppress my sex? Your strength? Your talents? Observe the Creator in his wisdom … and give me, if you dare an example of this tyrannical empire. Go back to animals, consult the elements, study plants … and distinguish, if you can, the sexes in the administration of nature. Everywhere you will find them mingled; everywhere they cooperate in harmonious togetherness in this immortal masterpiece.
Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle…. [H]e wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND THE FEMALE CITIZEN
For the National Assembly to decree in its last sessions, or in those of the next legislature:
Preamble Mothers, daughters, sisters and representatives of the nation demand to be constituted into a national assembly. Believing that ignorance, omission, or scorn for the rights of woman are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, [the women] have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman…. … the sex that is as superior in beauty as it is in courage during the sufferings of maternity recognizes and declares in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and of Female Citizens:
I. Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.
II. The purpose of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of woman and man; these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.
III. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially with the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man….
IV. Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others; thus, the only limits on the exercise of the natural rights of woman are perpetual male tyranny; these limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.
V. Laws of nature and reason proscribe all acts harmful to society…
VI. The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all: male and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents.
VII. No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women, like men, obey this rigorous law.
VIII. The law must establish only those penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary…
IX. Once any woman is declared guilty, complete rigor is [to be] exercised by the law.
X. No one is to be disquieted for his very basic opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb the legally established public order.
XI. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, since that liberty assures the recognition of children by their fathers. Any female citizen thus may say freely, I am the mother of a child which belongs to you, without being forced by a barbarous prejudice to hide the truth….
XIII. For the support of the public force and the expenses of administration, the contributions of woman and man are equal; she shares all the duties … and all the painful tasks; therefore, she must have the same share in the distribution of positions, employment, offices, honors, and jobs….
XIV. Female and male citizens have the right to verify, either by themselves or through their representatives, the necessity of the public contribution. This can only apply to women if they are granted an equal share, not only of wealth, but also of public administration….
XV. The collectivity of women, joined for tax purposes to the aggregate of men, has the right to demand an accounting of his administration from any public agent.
XVI. No society has a constitution without the guarantee of rights and the separation of powers; the constitution is hull if the majority of individuals comprising the nation have not cooperated in drafting it.
XVI. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separate; for each it is an inviolable and sacred right….
Women, wake up…. Discover your rights…. Oh, women, women! When will you cease to be blind? What advantage have you received from the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain…. [If men persist in contradicting their revolutionary principles,] courageously oppose the force of reason to the empty pretensions of superiority … and you will soon see these haughty men, not groveling at your feet as servile adorers, but proud to share with you the treasure of the Supreme Being. Regardless of what barriers confront you; it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to….