a biography of the day--olympe de gouges
Olympe de Gouges and the Rights of Woman
Women's Rights in the French Revolution
Beginning with the French Revolution and the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" in 1789, until 1944, French citizenship was limited to males -- even though women were active in the French Revolution, and many assumed that citizenship was theirs by right of their active participation in that historic liberation battle.
Olympe de Gouges, a playwright of some note in France at the time of the Revolution, spoke for not only herself but many of the women of France, when in 1791 she wrote and published the "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen." Modeled on the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" by the National Assembly, de Gouges' Declaration echoed the same language and extended it to women, as well.
As many feminists have done since, de Gouges both asserted woman's capability to reason and make moral decisions, and pointed to the feminine virtues of emotion and feeling. Woman was not simply the same as man, but she was his equal partner.
The French version of the titles of the two declarations makes this mirroring a bit clearer. In French, de Gouges' manifesto was the "Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne" -- not just Woman contrasted with Man, but Citoyenne contrasted with Citoyen.
Unfortunately, de Gouges assumed too much. She assumed she had the right to even act as a member of the public and to assert the rights of women by authoring such a declaration. She violated boundaries that most of the revolutionary leaders wanted to preserve.
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http://womenshistory.about.com/od/olympedegouges/a/Olympe-De-Gouges-And-The-Rights-Of-Woman.htm