THINKER'S ALMANAC - November 3

What happened to Marie-Olympe de Gouges two years after she wrote ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen’?

Subject:  Women’s Rights - Marie-Olympe de Gouges’ Declaration

Event:  The execution of Marie-Olympe de Gouges, 1793

Woman, wake up! The tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe. Discover your rights! The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. -Marie-Olympe de Gouges

A major achievement of the French Revolution occurred on August 26, 1789 when The Declaration of The Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted.  This document failed, however, to recognize the equality of women, an important detail that was not overlooked by writer and playwright Marie-Olympe de Gouges.  In response to the Rights of Man, Gouges published The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in 1791.  Gouges minced no words in her Declaration, saying, “This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society.”

Gouges challenging the male sex to live up to the ideals of the Revolution and of the Enlightenment. She also challenged conventional views.  She argued that just as nature manifests the harmonious cooperation of the sexes, so too should the laws of the state.  In an incredulous tone, she berates the male sex for his irrationality: 

Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerate -- in a century of enlightenment and wisdom -- into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties.

In words that eerily foreshadow her fate, Gouges demanded the same rights to free speech that men had:  “No one is to be disquieted for his very basic opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb the legally established public order.”

                                                            Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay 

For having the audacity to demand equality and for speaking out, Gouges was silenced.  Arrested in July 1793, she was sent to the guillotine and was executed on November 3, 1793.  Her influence and spirit lived on, inspiring Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which was signed in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.  Women in France were granted the right to vote as equal citizens in 1944.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What was Marie-Olympe de Gouges’ reaction to the publication of “The Declaration of The Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” and why did she react this way?

Challenge - Rushmore of Women:  If there were a Mount Rushmore featuring the four most influential women in history, which four women would you select and why?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

November 3, 1957:  On this day in 1957, the USSR launched the satellite Sputnik 2 into orbit.  Aboard the spacecraft was the first ever living being launched into space, a female terrier named Laika.  Just four weeks earlier the Russians had shocked the world by launching the first-ever satellite, Sputnik I on October 3, 1957.  Laika went from obscurity to fame as the first cosmonaut; just a week before the launch she was a stray living on the streets of Moscow.  Unfortunately, there never was a plan to return Laika to earth, so the Russian canine was forced to sacrifice her life for the benefit of humanity.  Laika most likely died from overheating within hours of takeoff.  Sputnik 2 continued to orbit the Earth for several months before it burned up in April 1958 upon reentering the atmosphere.  A Chicago newspaper tried to lighten Laika’s passing with a pun:

 

The Russian sputpup isn’t the first dog in the sky. That honor belongs to the dog star. But we’re getting too Sirius (2).

 

The launches of the two Sputnik satellites lead to a crisis in the United States as leaders feared Soviet domination of space.  In July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower formed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and in September 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which poured billions of dollars into the U.S. education system. Russia was successful in launching the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into space on April 12, 1961; however, the United States proclaimed victory in the Space Race when NASA’s Apollo program landed a man on the Moon in 1969 (See THINKER’S ALMANAC July 20). 

Sources:  

1-Marie-Olympe de Gouges. The Rights of Woman, 1791.

2-Latson, Jennifer.  “The Sad Story of Laika, the First Dog Launched Into Orbit.”  Time 3 Nov. 2014.   http://time.com/3546215/laika-1957/