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... is apparent that the opening paragraph of La Déclaration des droits de la femme is aimed at a male reader. Interestingly, in the following paragraph which begins "L'homme seul s'est fagoté un principe de cette exception," Olympe de Gouges has jumped from her direct second person attack on men, to a third person point of view, by now referring to men as "il". This makes the matter of who she is now directing her argument to, somewhat more ambiguous, as Olympe de Gouges gave no clues as to whom she intended to be the reader of this second paragraph. Moving onto the Préamble, Olympe de Gouges now appears to have undertaken the role of writing on the behalf of women. It is less obvious here though who was being spoken to in this section, as it could just as easily have been either sex from any social class. Strangely, although Olympe de ...