Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft

  • Choose one of the seventeen items in De Gouges’ “Declaration of the Rights of Woman” that seems particularly interesting to you and explain its meaning. Look up any unfamiliar words or terms.
  • ” No women is an exception; she is accused, arrested and detained according to cases determined by law. Women obey, just as men, this rigorous law.” (De Gouges, Section VII.) I found this item to be one of the most interesting ones because even though De Gouges is fighting for women to have more opportunities and independency from men. She also understands that equality means for men and women to be treated the same in every aspect such as when a women is being accused of a crime.
  • What do Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft seem to be saying about marriage? What do you make of their concerns?
  • Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft seem to think that as soon as a woman gets married,they will have complete dependency on their husband and will do just about anything so the men don’t leave them. The only difference is that De Gouges pointed out that as soon as the men get tired of them, that they will leave them, while Wollstonecraft said that the women would have affairs with other men if their husbands lost interest in them. Their point of views concern me because this just shows that the only thing woman were told by society was that they needed to be the perfect housewife. Women weren’t allowed to get the same education as men which made them have less opportunities and made them completely depend on their husband for financial support.
  • What is it like to read these two 18th century texts in the 21st century?  Describe one issue that De Gouges and Wollstonecraft address that still seems relevant to us today.
  • One issue that De Gouges and Wollstonecraft address that still seems relevant today is that society still has gender roles even until this day. For example, in today’s world their are more women as school teachers than men or their are more men working as police officers than women. Society still has certain expectations for each gender role just like women are portrayed to be more emotional and vulnerable than men are in things such as tv shows or movies.
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