Women in the French Revolution: fighting for equality

• Marisa Linton asks: How progressive was the French Revolution?

Salons and societies

Prior to revolution, in the eyes of many Enlightenment thinkers, women’s biological differences marked them as second to men in the natural order. They were expected to submit to their fathers and husbands, and while some minds of the day, including philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, thought that women should have the right to some education, this should be focused on caring and educating children as women differed from men in their “natural rights”.

Yet as the revolution swept through France, bringing ideals of equality and fraternity, women found ways to participate in every aspect. There were those who saw a chance to progress women’s rights alongside those of French men, like activist and writer Olympe de Gouges. In 1791, she declared: “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights.”

There were women such as Marie-Jeanne Roland and Germaine de Staël – known as salonnières – who hosted salons where revolutionary ideas were fostered and political power was brokered. And, of course, there were women who took up arms in physical revolt. In October 1789, as flour shortages and hunger in Paris led to discontent that boiled over into anger, women were at the centre of the maelstrom.

There were also those who petitioned government for more particular rights; in March 1792, Pauline Léon addressed the Legislative Assembly on behalf of Parisian women to suggest that a female militia should be formed to defend their homes, amid increasing counter-revolutionary violence. Though it was ultimately turned down, her petition was signed by more than 300 women.

Léon was no stranger to armed struggle; she had marched on the Bastille in July 1789, carrying her own pike. But as with other women, Léon’s participation was not confined to rioting and demonstrating. In 1793 she, together with actress Claire Lacombe, founded the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, a short-lived organisation that pushed for women’s right to contribute to the revolution.

It was by no means the only such society, as social clubs and revolutionary salons became important outlets, albeit ones with differing aims. For example, though Marie-Jeanne Roland is rightly remembered as an influential woman of the revolution, she was not an advocate for political rights for women, who she felt were still most effective in their domestic roles, and she loathed radical behaviour by the sans-culottes (the mostly working-class people of Paris).

Marie-Jeanne Roland was not an advocate for political rights for women, who she felt were still most effective in their domestic roles

There were also those we might today call ‘male allies’, such as intellectual and aristocrat Marie-Jean Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet. In July 1790, he published a newspaper article that argued that France’s millions of women should enjoy equal political rights with men.

The article caused a sensation, addressing the widely held feeling that women did not possess the same capacity as men for rationality or a sense of justice. Condorcet challenged critics to “show me a natural difference between men and women on which the exclusion could legitimately be based”. In turn, Condorcet’s article inspired the Cercle Social, one of the most progressive social clubs in revolutionary Paris, which launched a campaign for women’s rights in 1790–91.

Hampered ambitions

But the state of revolution that allowed women this sense of social progress was not to last. Despite their presence at the centre of many factions and salons, the prevalent view was still that women could best serve the cause by acting as ‘republican mothers’, responsible for teaching their sons to honour and love the republic, and supporting the new society that was being carved out.

Time and again, critics insisted that nature determined different but complementary roles for men and women. These divisions and divergent aims – both between individuals and classes of women, and mirrored in the movement at large – hampered any chances of real progress.

Time and again, critics insisted that nature determined different but complementary roles for men and women

In May 1793, women were banished from government proceedings and shortly afterwards, they were forbidden from forming any political assembly. Corday’s assassination of Marat in July became a rallying point for the revolutionary government, and in October 1793, all women’s clubs were outlawed.

The question of whether the French Revolution furthered women’s rights remains a contentious point among historians today. Some social rights were granted to women: new inheritance laws, for example, meant that, irrespective of gender, children could inherit parents’ wealth equally. There was another step forward for the legal status of unmarried mothers and their children, while a new law enabling divorce gave equal terms for men and women.

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But as Napoleon rose to power, ideals of republican motherhood persevered. Though the revolution was undoubtedly a time of great debate concerning the status and rights of women from all social classes, the revolution did not change much in terms of their ability to contribute to a French democracy.

And though the revolution had long ripples, it cannot be seen as a direct contributor to women’s suffrage in France – a right that they would not receive until 1945.

This article first appeared in BBC History Revealed’s essential guide to the French Revolution in the October 2021 issue