The Submissive View Of Women During The French Revolution

Women are historically associated with the images of motherhood and reproduction within a nation since they carry on its bloodline through bearing children. Their images as mothers and caretakers have traditionally kept them within the private sphere of society making it difficult for them to transcend these images in order to achieve women’s rights. Furthermore, the Enlightenment, which influenced the French Revolution, put great emphasis on the ideals of universalism and reason. This created social and cultural stigmas in which men were considered to be rational and objective whereas women were considered to be emotional and irrational. Moreover, the importance of universal human nature, an ideal that could be argued as the central dogma
Contrary to this portrayal, it is also important to note that this submissive view of women in France can be traced back to the Ancien Regime in which single and married women had little to no rights since they were subsequently owned by their fathers and husbands further confining them to the domestic sphere. Women in the noble and religious classes did however have few political rights since they were able to send representatives to the Estates General, but the lack of women’s rights overall was insurmountable. Despite the almost insignificant attempts at advancing women’s rights prior to the French Revolution, the revolution itself gave women a platform and an opportunity to which they could fight for their equality. Although they made subsequent progress, the revolutionary women were only able to further their agendas to a certain extent, due to Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign in which many of their progressive measures were rescinded. However, despite these regressions, the activities in which they participated and their accomplishments greatly impacted and influenced modern feminism and women’s
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an Enlightenment philosopher and one of most influential proponents of the revolution, strongly believed that women should not engage in politics since men and women have different destinies and therefore women do not have the capacity to engage in politics (ROUNDTABLENOTE). Consequently, the Marquis de Condorcet, another Enlightenment French philosopher and an advocator of feminism, believed that women and men had the same basic natural rights and that “women [had] ‘these same qualities’, but the problem was that people have become so accustomed to women’s oppression that ‘nobody thinks to reclaim [their rights]” making it more difficult to achieve their rights (MTHOLYOKE236NOTE). Additionally, in pre-revolutionary France, the conceptualisation of women as secondary citizens placed them outside of politics especially since “a woman’s legal rights were merged with those of her husband… [so she] counted for nothing before the law; and therefore could not count as a citizen whose natural rights had to be respected by the state” (STANFORDCITE). Furthermore, any momentum women achieved in their attempt to gain equality in politics was met with opposition from the leaders of France. For example, when Pauline Leon, a revolutionary feminist, drafted and submitted a petition to the Legislative Assembly with over 300 signatures from supporting women, her request was