First published in 1791, Olympe de Gouges's sarcastic, trenchant feminist manifesto started a chain reaction in history that inspired other women to fight against the lives that society had imposed upon them. Selections from this tract are accompanied here by articles from the U.N. Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, as well as dozens of quotations by such figures as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Richard Dawkins, Toni Morrison, Victor Hugo, Rebecca West, Erica Jong, and Mahatma Gandhi. Along with a biographical introduction to de Gouges, this book contains 30 interpretive illustrations—from sly cartoons to surrealist allegories—by young French artists.