Preventing Women from Exercising Equal Rights as Men in the Political Research Paper

Preventing Women from Exercising Equal Rights as Men in the Political Sphere by Olympe de Gouges - Research Paper Example Olympe de Gouges and some contemporary feminists as Theroigne de Mericourt and Etta Palm d'Aelders expressed their concern about this grossly unfair inequality between men and women and over time the voice of Olympe de Gouges became the most consistent, rational, cogent and quite often strident especially while mercilessly conducting autopsy of laws and customs that prevented women from exercising equal rights as men in the political sphere. However, it was not until 1791 when she published â€Å"The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen† that de Gouges dared to challenge openly the preconceived and ingrained notion among both the ruling class and the scientists that women were not only intellectually but also physically incapable of seriously exercising their intellect or make rational decisions. But, she was not so strident and rigidly feminist right from the early stages of her life. The very thing that once made Olympe an object of scorn, namely the sea mlessness of her way of living, her dramatic work, and her social convictions, the absence of any contradiction in her between thought and action, is precisely what most impresses us today. It was not possible for an unknown, widowed woman born of illiterate parents, raised in the provinces far from Paris, with no formal education and little means, to be able to master the language and also the art of persuasive and forceful argumentative writing. Olympe was no co-opted, no compromiser; rather, she was a forerunner, and one endowed with the sort of courage that can smash every form of dictatorship.