ABSTRACT
The leaders of the Revolution were men. This fact should surprise no one, given the expectations that everyone, male and female, had at the time. Not all women were unknown or anonymous, however. Aside from the women who played leadership roles in their own neighborhoods and villages, there were women who fought to rise to center stage in Paris, who tried to make themselves as famous and as influential as the men. None quite succeeded. Some came close, though – closer than most of the men who came to Versailles or Paris, hoping to become famous, only to fall back into the mass of anonymous revolutionaries. Today, the most well known of the female revolutionaries is Olympe de
Gouges, due primarily (if not exclusively) to her Declaration of the Rights of Women. Any fame she won during her lifetime was hard-earned. She had been an unsuccessful playwright in the years leading up to the Revolution. A widow from a young age (and a mother of one son), she had enough money to continue to write plays, but had only a few of them produced. When the Revolution came along, she threw herself into it, advocating a variety of causes, from ending slavery to cleaner streets, but primarily she advocated the cause of women. She advocated for women to get the right to divorce, and for unwed mothers to be able to name the father of their children. Above all, she advocated for women to play an equal part in the political process.1
