Matthew Spina October 2, 2014 Dr. Scott Moranda Group Project Paper During the French Revolution, women fought for greater political power and increased equality among their male counterparts. While unable to shake the male centered culture customary to France, women were able to establish greater presence in society and create a feministic awareness among men. Olympe de Gouges provided the most brazen call at the time for women in her pamphlet The Declaration of the Rights of Women. Imitating the format of Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, de Gouges began her declaration on behalf of “the mothers, daughters, sisters, and female representatives of the nation.” Firmly believing that inequality between the sexes went against …show more content…
In 1804, Napoleon enacted the Napoleonic Code on Women. While the declaration asserts “all citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law,” Napoleon makes it nearly impossible for women to further their education to gain advancement in society. Women could not study independently, for her obligations were attending to “her husband, and to follow him to every place where he may judge it convenient to reside.” In this Code, Napoleon created laws that were counter-productive to the purpose of the Revolution, essentially denying women the right to an education equal to that offered to their male counterparts. The only legitimate feminist idea in the Code was what Olympe de Gouges said in her declaration: “marriage is a social contract between a man and a woman, as opposed to a transfer of possession from father to husband.” Despite the inclusion of that Code, it remained that woman were to be subjected to the control of their father or husband, and they were forbidden to engage in any exchange of "immovable" property without the particular man's consent. These Codes clearly favored the rights of men and tore away at advancements made in equality for