Olympe de Gouges: Executed for Women's Rights

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) is one of the most remarkable figures of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Born Marie Gouze in provincial Montauban, she moved to Paris, became a playwright and pamphleteer, and one of the world's first open feminists. In 1791 she published the "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" — a revolutionary document written in response to the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen."

De Gouges noticed that "man" in the Declaration meant only men. Her text opens with a powerful assertion: "Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights." She demanded for women the right to property, education, divorce, and political participation. Her famous phrase — "If woman has the right to mount the scaffold, she must also have the right to mount the rostrum" — proved prophetic.

De Gouges was not only a feminist. She spoke out against slavery, against the death penalty, and for the rights of children born out of wedlock. She criticized Robespierre and the Jacobins for their tyranny, publishing pamphlets that endangered her freedom and her life. In November 1793 she was arrested and guillotined — one of the few women executed for political activity during the Terror.

De Gouges' legacy was forgotten for a century and a half. Only in the second half of the 20th century did feminist historians restore her to her rightful place in history. Today she is recognized as one of the founders of the idea of human rights in their truly universal sense.