Une Voix prématurée: La Féminisme d’Olympe de Gouges en Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne

Abstract

This is my final research paper from my 18th-21st century history/literature French class discussing the importance and ramifications of Olympe de Gouges's 1791 pamphlet Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne, which was a feminist response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. I argue that although contemporary and modern-day critics have denounced Olympe de Gouges's writing was (at worst) "uncultured" or (at best) "proto-feminist," I see the Déclaration des droits de la femme as having been written with exaggeration and emotion to directly appeal and relate to the day-to-day lives of 18th century women. I believe she was a feminist not "before her time" but necessary for her time, and that the real reason she was tried and executed by capital punishment was that she dared to ask for equal rights for women.