She was born on May 7 1748 in France. She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s. She became increasingly politically engaged when political tension rose in France. In 1788, she became an outspoken advocate against the slave trade in the French colonies. She also began writing political pamphlets. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality.

In 1793, she was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

Olympe de Gouges greeted the outbreak of the Revolution with hope and joy but soon became disenchanted when equal rights were not extended to women. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In September 1791, the declaration was published.

Olympe de Gouges wrote in the first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen that “Women are born and remain free and equal in rights.”