The reading I have chosen to write about is The Rights of Woman by Olympe de Gouges. It was published in 1791 during the French Revolution. It follows the struture of Declaration of the Right of Man and of the Citizen, as seen by the 17 articles that are present in each of the declarations. For example, the first article of Declaration of the Right of Man and of the Citizen mentioned that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.” Likewise, The Rights of Woman says “Woman are born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may only be based on common utility”. It is quite interesting how The Right of Women seems to directly challenging the Declaration of the Right of Man and of the Citizen.

The author of this reading is Olympe de Gouges. She was writing this because the French Revolution never addressed the rights of women but only declared the rights of the men. Moreover, The Right of Women exposes the irony of the war; it was supposedly fought in order to establish gender equality, but Olympe de Gouges wrote this to show the failure of the French Revolution.

The main argument of this piece is that men and women should be equal. At the end of the reading, she asks the women what advantages they had receive from the Revolution. After the Revolution, men gained their rights, but in turn, treated the women injustly. The higher authority of the French government believed that the rights of woman should not be the same as those of men. She also try to motivate women to stand up for the own rights in the reading.

The strong point of this reading is her usage of Declaration of Men and of the Citizen as a model. It clearly show the situation back then, how the rights of women were different from the rights of men. This is an effective method that encourages women to stand up and fight for rights that should be the same as those of men. The weakness of the reading is that she didn’t exactly mention specific steps in order to obtain their own goal of achieving these rights.

I think it is successful in conveying its message; it clearly lists out the rights that should be established by stating the seventeen article. Doing this, she is able to directly communicate to the women the injustice that they were experiencing and also question the men and French government. She is successful in showing how the current position of women did not make sense; for example, she writes about how women are punishable under the law but were not given equal rights.

Looking back from 2015, I think progress has been made, but it still can be better. Although there is currently still gender inequality, the situation is much better than that of the period in which this was written. For example, women had no say in politics and could not vote, but now women have voting rights. Unfortunately, we can stilll see gender inequality in today’s society when we look at the lower salaries that women make compared to men when doing the same job. Also, we see that the higher positions in companies are mainly composed of male figures and it is difficult for women to enter even with the same qualifications. As you can see, the goal of gender equality is still not reached but is slowly progressing. If Olympe de Goughes was alive today, she would probably be happy with how women have progressed in their rights but would agree that more can be done.