Olympe de Gouges' Advocacy for Women's Rights
Translated by
ScribdTranslationsOlympe de Gouges' Advocacy for Women's Rights
Translated by
ScribdTranslationsTEXT 2
The DDFC written in 1793 seeks to amplify the DDHC to show that women are
the forgotten ones of the Revolution. This pastiche (= imitation) also gives 17 articles of laws but it is
follow-up of a long preamble. In this, Olympe de Gouges proposes a new social contract
to replace the marriage laws. The text that we are going to study is located just afterwards, Olympe
de Gouges defends and explains her bill.
(reading of the text)
We will see how this advocacy (= text that defends) defends women's rights and the
exceeds.
The plan is structured in three movements; after defending her bill, she expresses her
wishes for equality that takes women into account then shows that this will be beneficial to the
whole society.
The first movement defends the conjugal act that is proposed, it eliminates the objections.
possible and try to show the natural logic of this law.
From the beginning of the text, Olympe de Gouges establishes herself as an author and a reference. She asserts herself with
"Here it is" to her audience and takes responsibility for her opinions with "I propose". She then uses a strategy
concessive to better refute his detractors. By qualifying his text as a 'strange writing' she seems
to give reason to one's opponents but just on the surface. We then see a listing
ironic and pejorative where the clergy is mixed with negative images and hypotyposes (=taking
a name to designate a category). It therefore gives a sarcastic image, in advance, of its
detractors. After this negative image, Olympe de Gouges presents a beneficial vision of her law.
The use of the future tense 'will offer; will have; will allow' gives a predictive value to the text as if
It was true, it is an assertive future (one that affirms), Olympe de Gouges shows her determination.
and his hope. She illustrates her arguments with an example "The Rich Epicurean" this example is
obviously very ironic. The abundance of positive notions poorly hides a behavior.
selfish and perverse, the phrase is in the present, the shift to the future 'when there will be' shows that these
behaviors will disappear. The text then plays on oppositions between positive terms and
pejorative. We play on moral notions, the positive qualifiers are exaggerated and the vocabulary
negative have very marked noun complements. The author uses pathos, she puts herself
on the side of the victims and creates empathy, this is especially seen with the vocabulary of the
suffering where women are labeled as victims and nature groans.
Olympe de Gouges ends her paragraph by giving her detractors two orders that seem to offer
a choice but in fact she just asks them to be quiet.
By staging her opponents in a grotesque manner, the philosopher can thus give a
positive image of the ideas of his law text.
The second movement focuses on the positive aspects that this new law will provide.
To do this, she will comment on two cases, women whose paternity is not recognized.
child and public girls in a second case.
The issues of paternity recognition were already mentioned in the articles of the Declaration.
(article 11). The use of a conditional "I would like" in anaphora shows the strength of its
wish. "I would like" repeated 4 times highlights the steps of this reflection, each time more.
"I would like" is syntactically supported. We are dealing with a typically vocabulary.
legal "law; commitment; compensation" that is marked on morality, but like all laws it
provides for financial repairs. She then specifies as she has done before, that the
the law is not a soft conduit for women, it therefore allows for punishing women for their
misconducts. Her proposal extends to what she calls 'public girls', she shows by
citing herself that she knows the subject and has already studied it thoroughly, she defines herself as
expert on prostitution. Olympe de Gouges concludes with an idea that is both provocative and innovative.
"It is not the prostitutes who degrade society, it is the women," she blames society.
feminine in general and not the prostitutes participating in the degradation of morals. We find
this idea from the beginning of the postamble when it accuses women of using seduction to
manipulate men.
In this second movement, she therefore demonstrates the validity of her ideas by speaking about
two problematic cases for women. The recognition of paternity and prostitution, this is them
allows proving that their proposed law will be beneficial. It summarizes their point in an elliptical manner.
in the beginning of the 3eparagraph.
Indeed, in this movement she will distance herself from real examples to
offer broader concepts for reflection.
We can see that the tone changes notably with the vocabulary; Olympe de Gouges uses...
expressions dear to philosophers of the eighteenth century. One can note "invincible means; wisdom of
laws; impractical means" this entire lexical field shows that his text is of the same level as
those of the great philosophers. It handles the same ideas "laws, morals, government."
She shows great certainty with the use of the present tense "I offer; insists...", for her it is
as if the future were already accomplished. In the second part of the paragraph, she refutes with
“IF”, a possible complication. If the man refuses”, the action is marked by a structure
ternary of short and juxtaposed propositions that shows obligatory success.
The end of the text brought by the imperative, "add to it," further adds to the decision that this will benefit.
the entire nation. She takes the opportunity to slip in a shocking idea that is dear to her,
marriage of priests.
We see that this third movement broadens the reflection and shows that the problem
beyond the marriage of women, Olympe de Gouges seeks to show that her reflection engages the
entire nation.
In this text, Olympe de Gouges therefore defends her proposal for a new social contract.
marriage. After discrediting her detractors, she argues by showing how much women
is disadvantaged by the current rules, particularly on certain points. She then expands her
movement to show that the entire nation will benefit from the proposed changes.
This is what Olympe de Gouges generally does in the DDFC, not content to propose
Improvements, it mainly explains how they will be beneficial.