A woman has the right to be guillotined. She should also have the right to debate. — Olympe de Gouges (image via Wikimedia Commons) In her brief 45 years, Olympe shaped French politics -- and the burgeoning feminist movement -- in a way no one woman had ever before. Olympe laid out her political agenda in her plays (most famously, "The Slavery of the Blacks), her journalism (in her own self-started newspaper, "Letter to the People") and her other writing (including "The Declaration of the Rights of Woman," today considered an essential feminist text on every women's studies reading list).
A Woman to Know: Olympe de Gouges
A Woman to Know: Olympe de Gouges
A Woman to Know: Olympe de Gouges
A woman has the right to be guillotined. She should also have the right to debate. — Olympe de Gouges (image via Wikimedia Commons) In her brief 45 years, Olympe shaped French politics -- and the burgeoning feminist movement -- in a way no one woman had ever before. Olympe laid out her political agenda in her plays (most famously, "The Slavery of the Blacks), her journalism (in her own self-started newspaper, "Letter to the People") and her other writing (including "The Declaration of the Rights of Woman," today considered an essential feminist text on every women's studies reading list).