Women+and+the+Revolution

= Women and the Revolution = = How did women contribute to the revolution? =



Women's Role in the Revolution
Unlike in previous times, the women played a crucial part in the French Revolution. They were involved in many of the most dramatic events of the Revolution such as the March of the Versailles on October 5, 1789. In fact, it was the lower class women, a mob of fishwives, who initially seized the King, in which he had no choice but to accept his position as an executive in a constitutional monarchy. In addition, women were also involved in the Great Fear, meeting of the Estates- General and the assassination of the key Jacobin leader Marat. Women played such a large role in the revolution, that they became the symbol for French Revolution. For example, "Marianne" was the personified version of the new French Republic.



Their Beliefs
The women of the time wanted the same suffrage, property and civil rights to pertain to women as to men. They specifically called for equal rights between men and women, greater job opportunities, better education, political equality, divorce laws, the abolishment of primogeniture, and greater freedom to govern their own lives. Such was shown in the Declaration of the Rights of the Women and the Female Citizen, published by a feminist named Olympe de Gouges. She demanded “full legal equality of the sexes, wide job opportunities for women, a state alternative to the primary dowry system, and schooling for girls.” Here are some of the examples that are listed on the Declaration of the Rights of the Women;

1. Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.

2. The purpose of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of woman and man,; these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.

3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially with the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man; no body and no individual can exercise any authority which does not come expressly from it [the nation].

4. Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others; thus, the only limits on the exercise of the natural rights of woman are perpetual male tyranny; these limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.

5. Laws of nature and justice proscribe all acts harmful to society; everything which is not prohibited by these wise and divine laws cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do what they do not command.

6. The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all; male and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents.