"In 1791, Olympe de Gouges, a radical pamphleteer, published a response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which proclaimed France a constitutional monarchy and gave all men of property the right to vote. “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights,” reads the first article of her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, which demanded full political rights and responsibilities for women. Since “woman has the right to mount the scaffold,” Gouges noted, “she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.”"