A quotation from Olympe de Gouges
Quotation
A woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.
Philosophical Context
EnlightenmentFrenchOlympe de Gouges
She answered the Revolution's Rights of Man with the Rights of Woman, and went to the guillotine for taking liberty at its word.
A butcher's daughter who became a playwright and pamphleteer, Olympe de Gouges threw herself into the French Revolution and then held it to its own promises. In 1791 she published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, rewriting the famous Declaration article by article to include women: if a woman may mount the scaffold, she wrote, she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum. She campaigned against slavery and for the poor, and attacked the Terror. In 1793 the revolution she had served sent her to the guillotine: proof, and indictment, of the rights she demanded.
Understanding This Quotation
What does Olympe de Gouges mean by this quotation?
She answered the Revolution's Rights of Man with the Rights of Woman, and went to the guillotine for taking liberty at its word. A butcher's daughter who became a playwright and pamphleteer, Olympe de Gouges threw herself into the French Revolution and then held it to its own promises. In 1791 she published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman a…