This biography, written by Marine Desage-El Murr, has been republished with permission from the Dangerous Women Project, created by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
Born: 7 May 1748, France
Died: 3 November 1793
Country most active: France
Also known as: Marie Gouze
Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) was an intellectual of her time, writer, political figure, and perhaps among the first true feminist activists. Born Marie Gouze, she changed her name upon arriving in Paris from hometown Montauban, drawn to the capital by her strong-willed and unique personality. Her trademark wit, irony and verve, her relentless passion for literature, theater, as well as politics soon established her as one of the brilliant minds on the Parisian intellectual scene. In a time where all things political were the private preserve of men, she wanted to be part of the political debate and set out to let her voice be heard.
Inspired by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen, a founding act of the French revolution published in 1789 proclaiming equality between men, and defining the terms by which they should live amongst each other as citizens, Olympe decided that such bold act of freedom should not be left to men only. She crafted her own Declaration on the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, which was presented to the National Assembly just two years after the original that inspired her. This text freely elaborates the rights of women as individuals and as citizens, and is a defining act of freedom for humankind, men and women alike. Bringing women, the forgotten half of the French nation, out of the shadows and back in the political scene was an incredibly daring and courageous thing to do, and dangerous too, as history teaches us. This text was rejected and therefore never achieved law like status. Though condemned to remain a literary piece, only excerpts were made public and its full content was only published as of 1986, which seems an agonizingly long time. Olympe de Gouges advocated divorce, substitution of religious marriage by a civil pact between partners, and laid the foundations for childcare and maternity support; she was by all means an utmost universalist. Critical of the political scene of her time, she was sentenced to death and beheaded by guillotine on November 3rd, 1793.
In an age where women were not considered as significant in the political and societal issues, Olympe stood out as a truly free, and therefore dangerous, spirit.
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Olympe de Gouges, a French activist, feminist, and playwright, wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.
Olympe de Gouges, a fervent advocate for human rights, initially welcomed the French Revolution with optimism but grew disheartened as equal rights were not extended to women. In 1791, she joined the Society of the Friends of Truth, also known as the “Social Club,” dedicated to securing equal political and legal rights for women. Meetings occasionally convened at the home of women’s rights advocate Sophie de Condorcet.
In the same year, as a response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Gouges authored the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen” (Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne). Within this pamphlet, she articulated her famous statement for the first time:
“A woman has the right to ascend the scaffold. She must equally possess the right to ascend the speaker’s platform.”
Subsequently, Gouges penned her own interpretation of the Social Contract, proposing a vision of marriage grounded in gender equality. This work bore the title “Contrat Social,” named after Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s renowned treatise.