![]() Olympe de Gouges never allowed the prejudices of her time, the disparagement of her critics or the dangers inherent in being outspoken during the Terror to silence her. Believing in the power of drama to encourage political change she wrote several plays that ingeniously highlight contemporary concerns. She called for a form of welfare state, trial by jury and reasonable divorce laws to protect women and children from penury. She pleaded against slavery and the death penalty, dreamt of a more equal society and proposed intelligent taxation plans to enable wealth to be more fairly divided. Her texts chart her battles against injustice and inequality, her belief that solidarity and cooperation should predominate, her hatred of dictatorships and the corrupting influence of power, her profound pacifism, her respect for mankind, her love of nature, and, of course, her desire that women be allowed a worthwhile role in society. ![]() She is best remembered for championing women's rights in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791) but her profound humanism led her to strongly oppose discrimination, violence and oppression in all its forms.ĭenied a place in the powerful circles of her day she found her political voice by writing an astonishing number of pamphlets and posters that she freely disseminated around Paris. ![]() ![]() ![]() Olympe de Gouges ( – 3 November 1793) was one of the first women to fight for equal rights. ![]()
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