Olympe de Gouges

Born May 7th, 1748 Montauban, France

Executed November 3rd, 1793 Paris, France by guillotine

Considered one of the very first feminists, she was a French writer and political activist who was known for questioning the set roles of women in society at the time.

Started as a writer in the 1780s

She married at the young age of 17 and gave birth to her son the same year that her husband died in a flood. Some think that she left him and made up the fact that he died as a cover.

She attended many political club meetings throughout the 1780s and published many pamphlets criticizing the monarchy and in support of women’s rights. She also wrote pamphlets protesting slavery in French colonies. 

Some of her works were early contributions to the abolitionist movement in which she supported. 

Her most famous work, The Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen, was a direct response to the previous declaration of the rights of men. In a lot of cases the declaration took the original text and simply replaced man with woman. She also dedicated the declaration to Marie Antoinette. 

After she was arrested, she voluntarily led the commissioners to where her papers were kept. They unearthed the first act and a half of her last play France Preserved or a Tyrant Dethroned which portrayed a “sympathetic” Marie Antoinette.

At her trial, both the prosecution and Olympe used it as evidence. The prosecution said that the unfinished work was dangerous and threatened to stir up the wrong kind of support, so she was eventually executed on November 3rd, 1793 by guillotine.