Olympe de Gouges, born Marie Gouze, was born May 7th 1748 in Montauban, France. She was a playwright best known for her feminist writings during the French revolution. At the age of 16 Olympe was married to Louis-Yves Aubry however, shortly after a split occurred caused by Aubry’s death Olympe moved to Paris in 1770. She became very politically involved for the rights of women and many political matters such as abolitionism. She was also in support of the French revolution and wrote many letters to Queen Marie Antoinette asking for equality among women in France and those who suffered from a lack of human rights. Due to her success, her writings and philosophical analysis reached a broad spectrum of audiences. Writings such as Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen and plays such as The Slavery od the Blacks gained her notoriety. After protesting against the constitution and Montagnards she became one of the many women in history to be sentenced to death in France. On November 3rd 1793 the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced her to death via guillotine due to sedition, her last words being “Children of the homeland, you shall avenge my death!”. Though her time was cut short it is safe to say that Olympe’s work, and fight for equality amongst a variety of minority groups still is relevant to this day. Especially her writings about women’s rights, her political stances on slave emancipation, and free speech for women that were seen as too radical for France at the time.
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introduction
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philosophical explanation
comparison with Jean Jacques Rousseau
closing argument
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