Which shortcoming of the men's rights declaration did Olympe de Gouges's declaration expose?

Correct answer: Not treating women as equal citizens

The correct answer is A. Olympe de Gouges exposed the failure of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen to treat women as equal citizens. The declaration used universal-sounding words such as rights, liberty, and citizenship, but in practice political rights were mainly given to men. In 1791, de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen to demand that women should enjoy the same legal and political rights. Option A is correct because it identifies the gender-based exclusion. Option B is wrong: the issue was not that the king had been given less power. Option C is wrong because reducing Church tax was not the central criticism in her declaration. Option D is wrong because abolition of feudal dues was a separate revolutionary issue, not the specific shortcoming she highlighted. The key lesson is that a declaration may use universal language but still exclude a large group in practice. Memory cue: “rights of man” did not automatically mean rights of every human being.