declaration of women's rights and the female citizen

This object description and its related educational resources were researched and written by our team of historians and education specialists.

Enquiry: Was the French Revolution true to its principles of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite?.Enquiry: Who fought for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and what were some of the tactics they used?.

Using objects, artworks and other sources to find out about the past.

Use our Classroom resources to investigate this object and the themes of Revolutionary ideas, and the French Revolution further. In October 1793 she was finally tried, condemned to death and executed at the guillotine, all on the same day.Īs many as 40,000 people were executed at the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France. Refusing to stay quiet, de Gouges wrote two new works while she was imprisoned, that her friends secretly published. Ultimately, her views and active campaigns were deemed a threat to the ideals of the Revolutionary government and she was arrested, during what became known as the Reign of Terror. De Gouges also wrote plays – performed by her own theatre company – calling for an end to slavery and raising awareness of social issues. Here she bravely drew attention to the fact that, while the French Revolution called for liberty and freedom, this did not apply to women. She wrote prolifically about this, most famously in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791). Olympe de Gouges believed women should have the same rights as men – a revolutionary idea at the time. Here she began formulating her ideas and campaigning for a more equal society. Instead, she moved to Paris where she reinvented herself and adopted the name ‘Olympe de Gouges’. When her husband died a year later, she chose not to remarry. As a young woman of 16, she was forced into an arranged marriage by her family. Olympe de Gouges (1748 – 1793) was born Marie Gouze, in southern France.

Declaration of women's rights and the female citizen