Olympe de Gouges and the Rights of Woman

The Revolution's language of rights inspired some women to demand that it apply to them. In September 1791 the playwright Olympe de Gouges published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, rewriting the 1789 Declaration article by article to include women. She argued that if a woman could be sent to the scaffold, she must also have the right to speak in public life. Other voices, such as the philosopher Condorcet, also argued for women's political rights.

Women formed clubs, petitioned the assemblies, and made real gains in civil law: a 1792 law legalised divorce on equal terms. However, in October 1793 the Convention banned women's political clubs, and de Gouges, who had criticised the Jacobins, was executed in November 1793. Historians view the period as both an opening and a closing for women's rights.