Question

Describe the role of women in the revolutionary movement in France?

Answer 1

i. The Constitution of 1791 reduced the women to passive citizens in France and the right to vote is denied. They demanded the right to vote, to be elected to the Assembly and to hold political office.

ii. In order to discuss and voice their interests women started their own political clubs and newspapers. About sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities. The Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women was the most famous of them.

iii. Women’s movements for voting rights and equal wages continued two hundred years in many countries of the world. The fight for the vote was carried out through an international suffrage movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

iv. The example of the political activities of French women during the revolutionary years was kept alive as an inspiring memory. It was finally in 1946 that women in France won the right to vote.