There are always a few women in history that are remembered for shaking things up a bit. Olympe de Gouges is definitely one of them and she did it back in the 18th century.
Born May 7, 1748 in Montauban, Marie-Olympe Mouisset wasn’t sure who her father was. At 17 in 1765 she married Louis-Yves Aubrey de Gourges. The next year son Pierre was born and just two years after their marriage her husband was swept away in a flood.
In 1770 she moved to Paris with her sister and became the belle of the Paris Salons. Jacques Biétrix de Rozières who was a director of a military transport company who wanted to marry the lovely Olympe but she knew she had more freedom as a writer as a widow than married.
Olympe began to speak up through her words and on the stage. Creating her own theater company of women that would perform her plays. Her first play was Zamore et Mirza. The story of slavery in the colonies that never took the stage. It was 1784 and the Comedie Francaise received death threats and the controversial play would have to wait but would still send her to the Bastille.
One play after another spoke out against women’s rights and those that couldn’t and would all lead her to her biggest accomplishment. As the Revolution neared she supported the monarchy until the day Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette tried to escape. She had hoped MA would support the rights of women including the freedom of speech, voting and running for office. The Rights of Men was published in August of 1789 and two years later Olympe would publish her own version.
On September 14, 1791 the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen was made public. The 17 articles were reimagined and many were the same as the mens, just changing the gender.
Of course this didn’t sit well with Robespiere and had her arrested on July 20, 1793. She was charged five days later with “writing works contrary to the wants and needs of the people”. A trial followed in October, but the end was laid out long before. On November 4, 1793 she walked the scaffolding to her death by guillotine. She would live on as a symbol for centuries as the woman that stood up for so many and laid the path for equality.
Claudine Hemingway
Bleu, Blonde, Rouge
Author & historian
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