Episode 15: Women’s Rights in the Early Revolution

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

Beginning in 1791, many French feminists demanded equal rights for women, given it was women’s activism, starting with bread riots, that propelled the 1789 insurgency. Likewise women’s societies replaced nuns in running hospitals and caring for the poor as  the National Assembly closed down convents.

With the rapid Improvement in literacy rates, publication of women’s works (novels, political tracts, plays) skyrocketed. Much of the writing articulated specific demands, such as equal educational rights, the right to divorce, fairer inheritance laws and an end to physical abuse by men. When radical Jacobin clubs closed their doors to female members, women formed political clubs all over the country. They often combined political discussion with charitable work, such as workshops to train poor women in marketable skills, collecting funds to provide poor relief and paying off national debt, running local festivals, planting liberty trees and (during the war with Austria) making uniforms and bandages.

Olympe de Gouge was one the most prolific feminist revolutionary writers. In 1791 she published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen, claiming women were entitled to all the rights men received in the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. She also called for an end to slavery; the legalization of divorce and  prostitution; a luxury tax to help the poor and (for women) full freedom of expression, the right to vote and and hold public office, full property rights.

However when National Assembly delegates spoke in favor of women’s suffrage, they were openly booed.

*De Gouge was a constitutional monarchist and would be guillotined during The Terror.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149351