Given that ignorance, disregard or the disdain of the rights of woman are the only causes of public misfortune and the corruption of governments have decided to make known in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of woman this declaration, constantly in the thoughts of all members of society, will ceaselessly remind them of their rights and responsibilities, allowing the political acts of women, and those of men, to be compared in all respects to the aims of political institutions, which will become increasingly respected, so that the demands of female citizens, henceforth based on simple and incontestable principles, will always seek to maintain the constitution, good morals and the happiness of all.Īs a result, the sex that is superior in beauty as it is in courage during the pains of childbirth recognises and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. Mothers, daughters, sisters, representatives of the Nation, all demand to be constituted into a national assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen To be decreed by the National Assembly in its last sessions or in those of the next legislature. Bizarre, blind, puffed up with science and degenerate, in this century of enlightenment and wisdom, with the crassest ignorance, he wants to command, like a despot, a sex that is blessed with every intellectual faculty he feigns to rejoice in the revolution and demands its equal rights, to say nothing more. Only man has cobbled together a rule to exclude himself from this system. Reconsider animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally, cast an eye over all the variations of all living organisms yield to the evidence that I have given you: search, excavate and discover, if you can, sexual characteristics in the workings of nature: everywhere you will find them intermingled, everywhere cooperating harmoniously within this immortal masterpiece. Tell me? What gave you the sovereign right to oppress my sex? Your strength? Your talents? Observe the creator in his wisdom, examine nature in all its grandeur for you seem to wish to get closer to it, and give me, if you dare, a pattern for this tyrannical power.

Man, are you capable of being fair? A woman is asking: at least you will allow her that right.

The Rights of Woman The Rights of Woman License: Public Domain Olympe De Gouges Clarissa Palmer Introduction

Declaration of the rights of woman