Background
Personal Perspective
Olympe de Gouges lived during the French Revolution, which was an important influence on her work. De Gouges was troubled that the Declaration of the Rights of Men promised equality, yet no women’s rights were included or even discussed. This is the primary reason she decided to write her most famous work. Olympe de Gouges’ preoccupation with liberty caused her to also become involved in the civil rights movement, speaking out against slavery in the colonies. At the time she was alive it was not normal to speak out against slavery since slavery was common and not many people thought slavery was wrong (The My Hero Project). Olympe de Gouges’ work made an important mark on world ideas about liberty for all people, not only for Caucasian males. Her upbringing in a small bourgeois family enabled de Gouges to become the educated and talented activist she was. Another contributor was the way in which her birth parents were cloaked in mystery. Although she was brought up by a modest bourgeois family, rumors circulated about her actual lineage. One rumor went so far as to declare her as the illegitimate daughter of Louis XV. Her disputed parentage caused Olympe to develop a rebellious streak, especially since multiple rumors thought her birth to be illegitimate. This knowledge strongly affected de Gouges development in becoming an adult advocate. Olympe de Gouges later wrote treatises on the rights of illegitimate children, the rights of women to divorce, and the right to have extramarital relations. Her writing was influenced by her childhood and her loveless marriage, into which she was forced at the age of seventeen (Lindemann). Although left with a young child, Olympe de Gouges revolted against the stereotype of a “widowed mother” and vowed never to be re-married, although she lived with many long term partners.
Global Perspective
One setback Olympe de Gouge faced, besides the patriarchal and rigid society in which she lived, was the quality of her education. Due to the fact that she was a lower middle class woman, her writing was not always eloquent due to her poor education. Still, Olympe de Gouges kept writing until she reached a level of excellency. A turning point in Olympe de Gouges’ life occurred when she joined the Society of Republican and Revolutionary women, who encouraged her to write her most famous document, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. Had she not joined this society, it is possible she never would have contributed this document that is so crucial in the history of feminism (Clark 119). Another major turning point, or, rather, an ending point for Olympe de Gouges came with the beginning of the French revolution. Her opposition empirical injustice at first made de Gouges a supporter of the revolution, but she soon became disgusted with the inherent hypocrisy of the male-dominated version of “equality” that excluded her entire gender. Olympe de Gouges’ openness about her opinions is what made her an honorable women and advocate, but it was exactly these two qualities which caused her to arrested then killed as an enemy of the revolution. If she had not been as outspoken, Olympe de Gouges would not have been made to put her head under the guillotine, yet nor would she have made such a big impact on the modern world. A report on her death stated “Olympe de Gouges, born with an exalted imagination, mistook her delirium for an inspiration of nature. She wanted to be a man of state. She took up the projects of the perfidious people who want to divide France. It seems the law has punished this conspirator for having forgotten the virtues that belong to her sex.” This report in itself shows the contempt men had for women who tried to exercise the rights they deserved. She was condemned not only for her supposed association with enemies of the revolution but for “forgetting the virtues that belong to her sex,” by stepping outside the strict boundaries placed on women of her time. Gender bias and the general attitude of women as inferior to men were the activists’ greatest enemies, and she died speaking out for her cause. As stated by Joan Lewis in her brief summary about the life of de Gouges, For asserting this equality, and repeating the assertion publicly -- for refusing to be silent on the Rights of Woman -- and for associating with the wrong side, the Girondists, as the Revolution became embroiled in new conflicts -- Olympe de Gouges was arrested in July 1793, four years after the Revolution (Lewis).