Writer who demanded women’s civil and political rights
Born Marie Gouze, she was a French playwright and political writer. She criticized slavery and in her 1791 Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen demanded legal equality, public speech and political participation for women. The declaration challenged exclusions in existing declarations; it was not enacted legislation. She opposed revolutionary violence and the power of the Montagnards, and was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed in 1793.
Writing against exclusions in declarations of rights
De Gouges’s declaration of 1791 borrowed the language and form of the Declaration of the Rights of Man to ask whether the rights of “man” and “citizen” actually applied to women. It demanded, in particular, women’s participation in making law directly or through representatives and equal access to public office. It was not a constitution recording rights already secured for women; it was a political intervention exposing exclusions within revolutionary universalism.
Her activity was not limited to women’s rights. She criticised colonial slavery and entered public controversy through plays and pamphlets. Yet the space for speech during the Revolution was not equally open. Her trial and execution in 1793 occurred amid particular writings and political conflicts, and should not be reduced to a simple punishment for one demand for women’s rights. The declaration nevertheless remains a durable source for asking who was included in rights, representation, and citizenship.