as “il”. This makes the matter of who she is now directing her argument to, somewhat
more ambiguous, as Olympe de Gouges gave no clues as to whom she intended to be
the reader of this second paragraph.
Moving onto the Préamble, Olympe de Gouges now appears to have
undertaken the role of writing on the behalf of women. It is less obvious here though
who was being spoken to in this section, as it could just as easily have been either sex
from any social class. Strangely, although Olympe de Gouges is now acting as the
voice of all women, she doesn’t seem to include herself as one of them – opting to
refer to women in the third person plural rather than using the “nous” form.
The articles themselves in La Déclaration des droits de la femme are as
equally vague as the Préamble in terms of who Olympe de Gouges is addressing.
They are written in the same format as La Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du
citoyen, and this is evidently an effort by Olympe de Gouge to undermine this
original declaration. It could be argued therefore, that she is almost confronting the
author of La Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen by calling to attention
the sexist nature of this piece of legislation.
The Postambule, on the other hand, is undoubtedly aimed at women. This
can not be mistaken, as it is even stated “O femmes! Femmes, quand cesserez-vous
d’être aveugles?” which is a direct statement to the female sex. It must be noted that
here there is a definite contrast between the first paragraph of the declaration, as
Olympe de Gouges is now using “vous” to address women as opposed to her initial
“tu” when she was speaking bluntly to men.
The question now lies in which social class Olympe de Gouge directed her
arguments. This is a more difficult element to establish, as naturally a document such
as a declaration for the rights of women should surely remain unbiased. It would be
most hypocritical to accuse men of being discriminatory, only for Olympe de Gouges
herself to exclude certain classes from her declaration! On the surface at least,
Olympe de Gouges attempts to remain objective, by using phrases such as “nulle
femme n’est exceptée”, but if we examine the personal life of Olympe de Gouges,
there are certain elements which may lead one to believe that her sympathies swayed
more in favour of the rising bourgeoisie than the working class peasants of the time.
Olympe de Gouges was born into a poor family as the daughter of a common
butcher and a washerwoman. However according to an online source, she harboured
strange notions that she was ‘biologically the illegitimate daughter of a minor noble
and man of letters.’1 This pretence of being of noble descent, combined with the
wealth she acquired after the death of her husband, pushed her into the social category
of rising bourgeoisie, which would have well suited her fanatical monarchist stance
during the French Revolution.
In fact, Olympe de Gouges was so much in favour of absolute monarchy, that
according to one website her Déclaration des droits de la femme was in actuality
‘addressed to the queen’2 Of course, I have already noted that the first paragraph at
least was aimed directly to men, so this in itself is a contradiction, but it is not
impossible that Olympe de Gouge intended for both Louis XIV and his wife to be
privy to reading her declaration. As all women collectively are addressed in the
Postambule though, I find this theory somewhat unlikely.
Whether or not Olympe de Gouges saw the rising bourgeoisie as the vanguard
of the revolution is a matter for conjecture. She certainly aspired to being in this social
category as I have previously mentioned, but although she was ‘fascinated by the
tumultuous political events of the day’3 Olympe de Gouges did not support the revolt
against the monarchy, and ‘had no sympathy whatever with the women’s protest
procession to the king’s palace in Versailles on 6 October 1789.’4 Certainly there is
evidence to suggest that the rising bourgeois were amongst the major factors which
brought about the revolution, but to say that they were the vanguard is a debatable
statement in itself. There were also many other elements contributing to the start of
the revolution in France, including food scarcity in the years immediately before the
revolution, and an unmanageable national debt. Indeed individuals of all classes were
aggravated by the situation in the country at this time.
There was the issue that many people in the eighteenth century were
lacking in education and could not read or write. Olympe de Gouges herself was
poorly educated, and although she taught herself to be literate, she was far from
proficient with her spelling and punctuation. As second class citizens therefore,
women would have been even less likely than men to have had any sort of schooling,
and so many women would simply have been unable to read Olympe de Gouges’
Déclaration des droits de la femme even if faced with it. Any women with literacy
skills would have been members of the wealthy nobility or bourgeoisie rather than the
common peasant, which would seemingly push the argument in favour of Olympe de
Gouges having written her Déclaration des droits de la femme for women of her own
social class – that of the rising bourgeoisie.
The fact of the matter is that we can never be sure who precisely Olympe de
Gouges was directing her arguments at when she wrote La Déclaration des droits de
la femme, as for reasons best known to herself, she chose to be (perhaps deliberately)
unclear. There are factors which suggest that female members of the rising
bourgeoisie were her target audience when she wrote this declaration, yet one can find
a multitude of discrepancies to this hypothesis. It is just as possible then, that Olympe
de Gouges really did aim for her declaration to have a universal appeal, and to be read
by men and women from a variety of backgrounds and social classes.
Footnotes
1 – Andrew Roberts. Rousseau, the French Revolution Women and Slaves.
The Development of the Revolution with respect to Slavery and Gender
Olympe de Gouges
2 – Tony Cliff. Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation
The French Revolution : The bourgeois feminists
3 – Jane Wylen. A Story of the French Revolution
Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793): An On-Line Biography
4 – Tony Cliff. Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation
The French Revolution : The bourgeois feminists
Bibliography
Cliff, Tony – Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation. 1984.
Roberts, Andrew – Rousseau, the French Revolution Women and Slaves. 1997
Sunshine for Women - Olympe de Gouges 1745-1793
Wikipedia – Free Encyclopedia
Wylen, Jane – A Story of the French Revolution. 2004
