Question

Write a note on the role of women in the French revolution

Answer 1

During the French Revolution, the women held riots due to bread prices. They marched 12 miles in the rain shouting “To Versailles!”. There, they forced the king and queen back to Paris at knife point. They then formed the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, but the leaders opposed it. Because of that, they appeared at the meeting at the National Convention, petition in hand, protesting the opposition. Those at the convention only told them to basically go home and do gentle and maternal things. Despite being forced to disband, the petitioned to authorities about their personal demands. During the Terror, wives petitioned on the behalf of husbands in jail; teachers petitioned for help in collecting unpaid wages and workers petitioned on the oppression of unpaid employees. When the government shifted, making laws prohibiting petitions, it brought along food shortages. The women, then, revolted and petitioned. They led protest marches from the Section Headquarters to the Convention, gaining more supporters in the process. There, they seized flour wagons and refused to give them over to corrupt bankers. Armed forces were forced to disband the riot and the officials feared the women as a big threat. Because of all this, new representations of women emerged. Despite failing to achieve political freedom, they gained moral identity. Gender equality started to become a big issue. They were also no longer required to have parental permission before getting married. 

In 1791, a woman playwright named Olympe de Gouges wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Women in response to the new French Constitution(Dec. of the Right of Man), stating the importance of equality between sexes, wide job opportunities for women, education for women, a theater were women could play and an alternative to the dowry system. She was imprisoned and soon guillotined under the Reign of Terror.    

Charlotte Corday stabbed Jean Paul Marat in the bathroom after she was convinced that he was only out to destroy the crown. She was executed on July 17, 1793 for  this. Still, her actions inspired others to believe that the Revolution was corrupted by the Reign of Terror.

Answer 2

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.[1] A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and perpetuated women's second-class status.[2