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Olympe de Gouges: Advocate for Rights

Olympe de Gouges moved to Paris in 1768, where she became a prominent writer and playwright, advocating for the rights of women and the abolition of slavery. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791, demanding equal rights and social reforms. Her outspoken views ultimately led to her arrest and execution in 1793 for seditious behavior.

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13 views1 page

Olympe de Gouges: Advocate for Rights

Olympe de Gouges moved to Paris in 1768, where she became a prominent writer and playwright, advocating for the rights of women and the abolition of slavery. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791, demanding equal rights and social reforms. Her outspoken views ultimately led to her arrest and execution in 1793 for seditious behavior.

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saachee6093
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© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

In 1768, Olympe de Gouges moved to Paris.

She socialized in fashionable society, at one


point being called "one of Paris' prettiest women’. De Gouges attended the artistic and
philosophical salons of Paris, where she met many writers, including La Harpe, Mercier,
and Chamfort, as well as future politicians such as Brissot and Condorcet. She usually was
invited to the salons of Madame de Montesson and the Comtesse de Beauharnais, who
were playwrights.

De Gouges began her career as a writer in Paris, publishing a novel in 1784 and then
beginning a prolific career as a playwright. In 1788 she published Reflections on Negro Men,
which demanded compassion for the plight of slaves in the French colonies. She came to the
public's attention with the play Black Slavery, which was staged at the famous Comédie-Française in
1785. Her stance against slavery in the French colonies made her the target of threats.

Olympe de Gouges greeted the outbreak of the Revolution with hope and joy, but soon became
disenchanted when equal rights were not extended to women. In 1791, influenced and inspired by
John Locke's treatises on natural rights, de Gouges became part of the Society of the Friends of
Truth, also known as the "Social Club," which was an association with the goal of establishing equal
political and legal rights for women. In 1791, in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen, she wrote Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. She was
among the first to demand the emancipation of slaves, the rights of women, and the protection of
orphans, the poor, the unemployed, the aged and the illegitimate. She also proposed social reforms
such as workshops for the unemployed, education for women, and a national theatre for women
playwrights

As the Revolution progressed, she became more and more vehement in her writings. Finally, her
poster, The Three Urns, or the Salvation of the Fatherland, by an Aerial Traveller led to her
arrest. That piece demanded a referendum for a choice among three potential forms of government:
the first, a unitary republic, the second, a federalist government, or the third, a constitutional
monarchy. The problem was that the law of the revolution made it a capital offense for anyone to
publish a book or pamphlet that encouraged re-establishing the monarchy. On 3 November 1793,
the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced her to death, and she was executed for seditious behaviour
and attempting to reinstate the monarchy.

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