The changes were different for lower-class women as opposed to middle class women. "Only those wealthy enough to afford to dispense with women's work could partake of the new domesticity." Our textbook, does not spend as much time talking about the lower class as it does the middle class. None the less, it seems that in the cities, the condition of the poor was as desperate as it ever had been. Mothers abandoned their children to foundling hospitals because they could not raise them properly themselves. It was thought that they would live a better life at the hospitals, but hospital death rates were close to 80 percent. Women who had a job could not afford the material needed to educate their own children, nor did they even have time to educate them if it were possible. Working wom

Dissatisfied to how women were treated and in response to The Declaration of the Rights of Man, Olympe de Gouges wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman. In her first two paragraphs, she asks men, as a whole, what gives them the right to oppress women. "Your strength? Your talent?" She then asks men to observe all of nature and find another example of how the female sex is treated the same way. De Gouges then states that it will never be found, everywhere males and females cooperate in "harmonious togetherness". In the next paragraph it is stated that man alone is this way. She basically states that man, blind with science, wants to control and command the woman and he claims rights to equality only so nothing else has to be said about it.

Women also demanded their place in politics, but they continued to be excluded even "though the importance of their participation in the revolution was indisputable". The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was released on August 26, 1789. No references to women or their rights appeared in this document. Women were not thought of as being fit for participation in politics because of their "biological functions of reproduction and child-rearing". Wives were not independent or equal to their husbands in owning property, access to divorce, and the custody of their children. When a woman by the name of Madame Germaine de Stael asked Napoleon whom he considered the greatest woman, dead or alive, he responded "The one who has had the most children."

Article IV of her document declares that liberty and justice consist of giving back to people everything that belongs to them. The only limit on women's rights is male tyranny and this limit is to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason. Article VI states that the law must be the same for everyone, regardless of gender. Both males and females must contribute to the law some way, whether it is personally or by someone who represents them. Just as both men and women are equal in the eyes of the law, both must be "equally admitted to all honors positions, and public employment" without and other distinction except virtue and talent. Article VII further goes into law and declares that no woman is an exception and all are subject to the law equally. Women should be accused, arrested, and detained just the same as males. Article XI pertains to children. It states that communication of thoughts and opinions are one of women's most precious rights. Fathers can declare their children, and so women should be able to do the same without barbaric prejudice for hiding the truth. Article XIII declares that the contributions of women are equal to those of men

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Approximate Word count = 1809
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)