Olympe de Gouges: Feminism Pioneer
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ScribdTranslationsOlympia de Gouges
(Marie Gouze; Montauban, 1748 - Paris, 1793) French writer and heroine who
claimed equality of rights between men and women within the framework of the
French Revolution, as it is considered a forerunner of modern feminism.
Daughter of a seller of toiletry items (her father was, according to some,Louis XVy
according to other historians, the poet Lefranc de Pompignan married at the
fifteen years with a certain Aubry, who died shortly after, leaving him about 70,000
rental francs. She then went to Paris, where she took the name Olympa de Gouges
and devoted himself to literature.
When it burststhe French Revolutionhe initially adopted his ideas, but later fought against them
the system of Terror and its men with an energy that would lead her to the scaffold. She
says that he had tried to take care of the defense ofLouis XVIand that being the king
executed sent an insulting letter toRobespierrewhich he delivered to Olimpia to the court
revolutionary, who condemned her to die in the guillotine.
Olympe de Gouges wrote a large number of works for the theater, such as Zamore.
and Myrza, Lucinda and Cardenio, The marriage of Chérubin, The generous man, The
corrected philosopher and Molière at Ninon's house, of which only the first,
abolitionist ideology, was admitted to the Comédie-Française, and was performed in
1789 with the title The Slavery of Blacks or the Happy Shipwreck.
During his days of political activity, he gave the theater three more works: Mirabeau in the
Elysian Fields (1791), The convent or forced vows (1792) and Les
Vivandiers (1793). He also wrote The Philosopher Prince, a work in which, in the form of
Eastern tale, presents its ideas about women's rights, and many
booklets on social issues, such as The Spirit, The Three Urns, and A Testament
political. Among them, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of
citizen (1791), a title that was copied from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
citizen (1789).