Voting Station

Olympe De Gouges

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Advocate

The Resume

    (May 7, 1748-November 3, 1793)
    Born in Montauban, France
    Birth name was Marie Gouze
    Playwright and political activist
    Feminist and abolitionist
    Wrote the plays 'Zamore and Mirza' (1784) and 'The Black Market' (1790)
    Wrote 'Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen' (1791)
    Guillotined during the Reign of Terror for 'seditious behavior'

Why she might be annoying:

    She was a social climber.
    She claimed to be the out of wedlock daughter of the Marquis de Pompignan, since it was a step up socially from being the legit daughter of a butcher.
    She was financially supported by rich men that she slept with.
    Her spelling, punctuation and grammar were lousy.
    She tried to avoid, or at least delay, her execution by falsely claiming to be pregnant. (An examination by doctors and midwives showed she was lying.)

Why she might not be annoying:

    She advocated abolishing slavery.
    She demanded that French women be given the same rights as men.
    She wrote, 'Woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.'
    She criticized extremists on both sides of the French Revolution. (Unfortunately for her, one batch of extremists ended up running the country.)
    A witness to her execution wrote, 'She approached the scaffold with a calm and serene expression on her face, and forced the guillotine's furies, which had driven her to this place of torture, to admit that such courage and beauty had never been seen before.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 5 Votes: 20.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 15 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 17 Votes: 58.82% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 23 Votes: 78.26% Annoying