Olympe de Gouges one of the forgotten women's rights acticivists

Olympe de Gouges the forgotten women's rights acticivist

A portrait of Olympe

Early life

Olympe De Gouges, born Marie Gouges was born on May 7^th, 1748, in Quercy, France. 

An image of Quercy

She grew up speaking a dialect of French language. Her parents were her mom Anne- Marie and her second husband, Pierre Gouges. There is some debate that she was possibly an Illegitimate daughter of the Marquis de Pompigman a well known playwriter whom Marie transcribed works of, we are not certain she was his illegitimate daughter.

Marriage and pen name.

A full body watercolor painting of Olympe

Mary was unhappily wed to one of her father’s workers known as Louis at about age 14 or so. During this, she managed to give birth to a son who was named Pierre, most likely after her father. A few years go by, and Marie is widowed by the approximate age of 16 leaving their two-year-old so with her. At this point, Marie changes her name to Olympe and manages not to be married but still gets paid money by a wealthy gentleman.

Pursuit of literature and women’s rights

a sketch of one of Olympe's play scenes

Olympe managed to get education, being one of the few women of her social class to do so. She wrote 2 novels under her own name, a lot of which pioneered writing, as before this, women published under a male name to avoid taboo. A lot of the stuff she wrote were plays and political pamphlets. Her distinguished work consisted of female leads taking charge of their life in a time where that was difficult. She was one of the first people to speak openly about the injustices of France. Specifically, she worked on women injustice, that obviously needed to change because of the lack of rights that middle class people had.   

Political activism

An image depicting her declaration of of Women's Rights 

Olympe was a person determined to make France more peaceful. She openly protested about how terrible slavery was and some other treatments of individuals at the time. She protested how prostitutes were being treated along with other minorities.  In the French Revolution, Olympe published a book titled the women’s rights to make sure the women there were involved and a response to a book detailing the rights of men. She even insisted that divorce was a women’s right as well as not marrying. One of these key examples, is she tried to persuade the judge in charge of Louis XVI’s trial and insisted that Louis was to be exiled rather than being executed. She unfortunately lost that battle as Louis was guillotined.

Trial and Execution

A painting showing the execution of Olympe

 Olympe’s writings and beliefs got the better of her. Two years later, Olympe published a lot of controversial works that resulted in her eventual arrest. Yet she continued to participate in these protests by writing. After about 3 months of this, the revolutionaries in charge at the time, ordered her execution. In one of Olympe’s most famous works, she foreshadowed one of her heroines on a scaffold demanding justice. This would happen to Olympe, but unfortunately instead of demanding justice, she ended up guillotined on November 3 in Paris, about 6 months shy of her 46^th birthday.

Relevance and legacy

Olympe's bust at the national asembly

Olympe’s legacy is incredible and is still going strong to this day. People throughout time have protested the same way she did in the 20^th century alone and even before then. Some of the famous activists she inspired were Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King Jr and Ghandi, just to name a few activists she inspired.  In 2016, Olympe was exonerated for her crimes, and in 2024 a gold statue of her was unveiled in Paris on the Rue des Chappelles along with other women.

Olumpe's statue in Paris.