Work · Empiricism, Enlightenment & Liberalism
Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
The Declaration of 1789 rewritten for women in seventeen articles – with a postscript: “Woman, wake up!”
Introduction
Olympe de Gouges, a playwright and pamphleteer, published the Declaration in September 1791 as a brochure dedicated to Queen Marie Antoinette. It follows the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 article by article, names woman alongside man throughout and adds demands of its own, such as a mother’s right to name the father of her child. Article 10 states that if woman has the right to mount the scaffold, she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum. A model “social contract” between man and woman follows the postscript. De Gouges was guillotined in November 1793; the text became a reference point for feminist history in the 20th century.
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