We explained what role the women had in the French Revolution. In addition, who stood out and what rights claimed.
What role did women have in the French Revolution?
The French Revolution was a revolutionary process that began in 1789 and had the goal of ending the political and social structures of the old regime in France.
While most of its political protagonists were men, many women from different social strata had a prominent role both in popular mobilizations (as well as the march on Versailles) and in the organization of revolutionary clubs and societies (such as the society of revolutionary Republicans).
The women's struggle in the French Revolution combined the revolutionary political objectives with the claim of rights for women. However, during the French Revolution women They remained largely removed from political activityas demonstrates the promulgation of universal suffrage exclusively masculine in 1792. Even so, The recognition of some civil rights was achievedas the equality of men and women before divorce.
Among the women who stood out during the French Revolution are Olimpia de Gouces (author of the Declaration of Women and Citizen Rights), Pauline Léon, Claire Lacombe, Charlotte Corday and Théroigne from Moricourt.
Frequent questions
Who were the women who participated in the French Revolution?
Many women participated in the French Revolution process. Some of them are: Olimpia de Gouces, Pauline Léon, Claire Lacombe, Marie-Jeanne Roland, Germaine de Staël, Charlotte Corday, Moricurt or Etta Palm Théroigne.
What actions did women perform in the French Revolution?
Many women participated in demonstrations against food shortages or against the old regime. Some women with certain resources collaborated with the revolutionary cause and officiated as hosts of halls in which political personalities met. They also wrote speeches or political pamphlets, presented claims of equal rights to the National Assembly and created women's societies who contributed one or another revolutionary faction (although in 1793 all women's societies were closed by the revolutionary government).
What rights did women claim in the French Revolution?
In general, women who participated in the French Revolution demanded equality between men and women in areas such as political participation, the right to vote and education. While some civil rights achieved, their political participation remained restricted.
See also: French Revolution
Women in Versailles march
Before the French Revolution there were women in Europe thatfrom an individual position, They raised claims in favor of female equality. An example is the enlightened Spanish Josefa Amar, who wrote books like Importance of instruction that should be given to women (1784) and speeches such as Speech in defense of women's talent and their aptitude for government (1786) or the Speech on the physical and moral education of women (1790).
However, we had to wait for the French revolution so that the voice of women began to express itself collectively. In October 1789, almost three months after the taking of the Bastille, A group of women in Paris manifested against the high price of bread and the shortage of flour.
Thousands of men and women from Paris joined the demonstration and, since King Louis XVI had celebrated days before a banquet in his palace, They started marching to the Versailles Palace To transmit their indignation and demand that the king and the queen move to Paris and leave their luxuries.
Some protesters managed to enter the palace and made acts of violence until the king agreed to move with his family to the Palace of the Tubleías, in Paris.
Condorcet's ideas about women's rights
Among the enlightened French who developed the ideological program of the French Revolution, the figure of Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794), who in his work stands out Sketch of a historical picture of the progress of the human spirit (posted posthumously in 1795) He claimed the recognition of women's social role.
Condorcet compared the social status of women of their time with that of slaves and He was a supporter of his citizen participationas expressed in the essay On the admission of women in the right of citizenship (1790). After the triumph of the revolution in 1789 it arose an obvious contradiction: a revolution that based its justification on the universal idea of natural and political equality of human beings (“freedom, equality, fraternity”),), denied women's access (half of the population) To political rightswhich actually meant denying their freedom and their equality regarding the rest of the individuals.
“The habit can familiarize men with the violation of their natural rights, to the point that anyone will be found among those who have lost them to even think about claiming it, or believe it has been the subject of an injustice. (…) for example, have they not all violated the principle of equal rights by depriving, with such irreflexion, in the middle of the human race of the right of the right to attend the formation of the law. excluding women from citizenship right?
Condorcet Nicolas
On the admission of women in the right of citizenship, 1790
Olimpia de Gouces and the Declaration of Women's Rights
The playwright and revolutionary activist Olimpia de Gouces (1748-1793), whose birth name was Marie Gouze, It was the main protagonist of the struggle for women's rights during the French Revolution.
In 1791 published the Declaration of Women and Citizen Rights that was a tracing of the Declaration of the rights of man and citizen approved by the National Assembly in August 1789 but with significant changes in the terms used.
A comparison between both texts is enlightening:
“The representatives of the French people, constituted in the National Assembly, considering that ignorance, oblivion or contempt for the rights of man are the only causes of public evils and corruption of governments (…) recognize and declare (…) the following rights of man and citizen.”
Declaration of the rights of man and citizen, 1789
“Mothers, daughters and sisters, representatives of the Nation, ask to be constituted in the National Assembly. Considering that ignorance, oblivion or contempt for women's rights are the only causes of public misfortunes and corruption of governments, they have resolved to present in a solemn statement the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of women (…)”.
Olimpia de Gouces
Declaration of the rights of man and citizen, 1789
When reinterpreting the great programmatic document of the revolution, Olimpia de Gouces He denounced that the revolution had forgotten women in their equal and liberating project. He affirmed that the “woman is born free and must remain the same in rights “and that” the law must be the expression of the general will; All citizens and citizens must contribute, personally or through their representatives, to their training. ”
The Olympia of Gouces program was clear: freedom, equality and political rights, especially the right to vote, for women. However, The feminist approach was not shared by the vast majority of men who directed the revolution. Many considered that women had to deal with private chores of home and family.
In 1793, during the time of the Jacobino government known as “terror”, Olimpia de Gouces She was accused of defending the political principles of the Girondinos (opponents of the Jacobins), It was imprisoned and executed in the guillotine.
See also: Feminist Movement
The Society of Revolutionary Republican
In the faction of the Ragés (one of the most radical factions of the French Revolution) some had been grouped together Sans-culottes Parisians (urban low sectors, such as artisans and workers). In this group There were revolutionary women, such as actress Claire Lacombe.
In 1793, Lacombe created with Pauline Léon the society of revolutionary republican. Pauline Léon had participated in the takeover of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, and had presented a document signed by more than three hundred women to the National Assembly in 1792, in which he requested the formation of a female armed militia (a project that was finally rejected).
The society of the revolutionary republican was formed by women belonging to the working classes and the little bourgeoisie, which They defended the right of women to participate in the revolution and demanded improvements in their living conditions. Some wore the tricolor climbing or the frigio hat of revolutionary France.
However, In October 1793 the National Convention that ruled France He closed this and all women's societies and clubs That there was in France, which, together with the execution of Olimpia de Gouces, symbolized the failure of feminist claims during the French Revolution.
After the revolution, the Napoleonic Civil Code (1804), in which the main social advances of the revolution were collected, denied women the recognized civil rights for men during the revolutionary period (legal equality, property right), and imposed discriminatory laws according to which The home was defined as the exclusive scope of female performance.
Other outstanding women of the French Revolution
Marie-Jeanne Roland
In France, literary halls were places of meeting of personalities of politics and letters. Among the hosts of these halls were women, such as Marie-Jeanne Roland, who was in favor of the revolution, He had affinity with the Girondinos (a moderate faction) and wrote articles and political speeches.
In the Roland Hall, important revolutionary leaders met. Marie-Jeanne Roland and her husband, Jean-Marie Roland, were contrary to the most radical groups and denounced the Jacobin extremism. In 1793, Marie-Jeanne Roland was imprisoned and finally executed in the guillotine.
Staël Germaine
Another literary hall of Paris was that of Germaine de Staël, who I had illustrated ideas and defended an egalitarian education for men and women.
During the French Revolution, he was in favor of a moderate position related to the constitutional monarchy, so he had to go into exile at the time of the Republican government of the Convention in 1793. When he returned to France, he defended in a brief Maria Antonieta, who was being prosecuted, and during the Napoleonic era had to be exiled again.
Condorcet Sophie
The Girondino Nicolas de Condorcet used to participate in the social circle, a revolutionary club founded in 1790 that promoted republicanism. Between 1790 and 1791, The social circle promoted women's rightswith the participation of personalities such as Etta Palm.
Sophie de Condorcet, wife of Nicolas de Condorcet, allowed The social circle met at home.
Charlotte Corday
Among the women who participated in the French revolution on the side of the Girondinos, Charlotte Corday stood out. In addition to participating in political meetings, in July 1793 He murdered Jean-Paul Marath, one of the Jacobin leaders responsible for the era of terror. That same month, the Jacobins executed it in the guillotine.
Moricurt Théroigne
One of the women who used the Tricolor Escarapela of the French Revolution was Anne-Josèphe Théroigne of Moricourt. In 1789, while women's participation was prohibited in revolutionary assemblies, Théroigne repeatedly attended public stands.
He created with the revolutionary Charles-Gilbert Romme a political society that had a short existence, joined successively to the clubs of the ropes (“Cordeliers”) and the Jacobins and was slandered by the counterrevolutionary press. In 1792 participated in the assault on the Palace of the Tublerías And, in 1793, she was accused of supporting the Girondinos and humiliated in public. He concluded in a psychiatric asylum.
Etta Palm
Before the creation of the Society of the Revolutionary Republicans in 1793, another Women's Society had been created in 1791, The patriotic and charity society of the friends of truth. This society was founded by Etta Palm, a Dutch courtesan and spy that was involved in the French revolutionary process.
The company was related to the social circle that frequented revolutionaries as Condorcet, but I was reserved for women and proposed reforms oriented to equality of men and women in civil, political and educational affairs. He stopped working after 1792.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was a English writer who defended the French Revolution With his pamphlet Vindication of man's rights (1790). Subsequently, in Vindication of women's rights (1792), questioned the idea of many politicians that women should be educated only for household chores and defended the right to rational education for women.
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References
- Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2023). French Revolution. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Cokely, Cl (2018,). DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND OF THE (FEMALE) CITIZEN. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Kelly, L. (1989). The women of the French Revolution. Vergara.
- Mousset, S. (2017). Women's Rights and The French Revolution: A Biography of Olympe de Gouces. Routledge.
- Sazbón, J. (2018). Four women in the French Revolution. Biblos.
