women participation in French revolution
Answers
mark as brainliest
Historians since the late 20th century have debated how women shared in the French Revolution and what long-term impact it had on French women. Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them. That changed dramatically in theory as there seemingly were great advances in feminism. Feminism emerged in Paris as part of a broad demand for social and political reform. The women demanded equality to men and then moved on to a demand for the end of male domination. Their chief vehicle for agitation were pamphlets and women's clubs, especially the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women. However, the Jacobin (radical) element in power abolished all the women's clubs in October 1793 and arrested their leaders. The movement was crushed. Devance explains the decision in terms of the emphasis on masculinity in wartime, Marie Antoinette's bad reputation for feminine interference in state affairs, and traditional male supremacy. A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and perpetuated women's second-class status.
Despite the major changes in society that occur in 1792 through the inauguration of the First Republic, women are pretty much left aside from all the evolution of citizenship at the beginning.
They are never mentionned in the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen of 1789
The ideal woman, even for the male philosophers of the Révolution, is the mother that will bring young bright future “sans-culottes” citizens into the world.
They are also seen as guardians of “morality” and “virtue” that were the premises of the Révolution.
But they didn’t go down without a fight and had a considerable role to play in the events of the Révolution, especially through organising the political struggle.
They were generally the tenants of clubs and “Salons”, where politicians and masterminds of the Révolution debated and elaborated the concepts of the soon-to-be First Republic. For example : Robespierre was a regular of Manon Roland’s litterary club/salon before the entire conflict between the Montagnards and the Girondins (where she was a very respected and influential figure). So influential in fact that through her grip on Girondins activities, she managed to push Jean-Marie Roland de La Platière on the forefront of the Révolution as a leader, and that was quite a common thing for other salon littéraire owners.
They took up arms and constituted sometimes even half of the participants in the street riots that occured in the 1780s, notably in the revolts of the Sarthe of April and even in the Day of the Tiles 7th of June 1788, the start of the Révolution.
Women are very often credited through multiple sources of local authorities and even deputies of starting the marches, the riots and the protests. So much so that a law was instituted to limit the public reunion of women to a minimum of 5 individuals.
On the 5th of October 1789, a group of revolutionnaries constituted of nearly only women march towards Versailles to bring the king Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette to Paris by force so they could be judged there. It is a very known and symbolic event.