DOCUMENT-BASED ESSAY QUESTION

Women & the French Revolution

On the basis of the following documents, describe the role and status women in pre- and post-revolutionary France. To what extent did women benefit from the French Revolution during the period 1789-1794?

1. "I am not out to draw attention to myself, but I swear that I do want to shatter (our conventions and guarantee women the Justice that men refuse to them as If on a whim."

Mme de Montenelos, editor of Journal des Dames, 1774

2. "We ask for Enlightenment and jobs, not to usurp men's authority, but to rise in their esteem and to have the means of living safe from misfortune."

Petition of the women of Tiers to the king, January 1789

3. "Women, at least as things now stand, children, foreigners, in short those who contribute nothing to the public establishment, should have no direct influence on the government."

Abbe Sieyes, July 1789

4. "Why should people prone to pregnancy and passing indispositions be barred from the exercise of rights no one would dream of denying those who have gout or catch cold easily?"

Condorcet, 1790

5. "If our strength had equaled our courage, we would, like you, have hastened to take up weapons and would have shared with you the glory of having won our freedom. But it took stronger arms than ours to defeat the enemies of the Constitution; our weakness has prevented us from taking part in this Revolution. We content ourselves with admiring your efforts."

Free speech by women of Epinal, July 1790

6. "All women are born free and remain equal to men in rights...The aim of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of women and men....The nation is the union of women and men....Law is the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens have the right to participate, or through their representatives, in its formation.”

Olympe de Gouges, Rights of Woman, September 1790 (Olympe de Gouges. a playwright, was executed by the Jacobin government in 1793.

She was a supporter of the Girondin cause. The semiofficial Feuille du Salut Public wrote: "It seems that the law has punished this conspirator for having forgotten the

virtues that suit her sex.")

7. "All the lessons taught in public schools will aim particularly to train girls for the virtues of domestic life and to teach them the skills useful in raising a family."

Talleyrand, ''Projet de decret," September 1797

8. "Citizens, legislators, you have given men a Constitution; now they enjoy all the rights of free beings; but women are very far from sharing these glories. Women count for nothing in the political system. We ask for primary assemblies and, as the Constitution is based on the Rights of Man, we now demand the full exercise of these rights for ourselves."

Address to the National Convention from women from the Beaurepaire section, Summer 1793

9. "There is another aspect of women’s associations that seems dangerous. If we take into account the fact that the political education of men is still at its very beginnings, that all the principles are not yet developed, and that we still stammer over the word "liberty," then how much less enlightened are women, whose moral education has been practically non-existent ....women, by their constitution, are open to an exaltation (delusive euphoria) which could be ominous In public life. The interests of the state would soon be sacrificed to all the kinds of disruptions and disorder that hysteria can produce. "

Report to the National Convention by Andre Amar, Committee of General Security, October 1793

10. "Women! Do you want to be Republicans?...Be simple in your dress, hardworking in your homes, never go to the popular assemblies wanting to speak there. But let your occasional presence there encourage your children. Then la Patrie will bless you, for you will have done for it what it has c right to expect from you."

Feuille du Salut Public (semiofficial publication), November 1793

11. “I am often annoyed to see women arguing over privileges that do not suit them; even the title of ‘author’ seems ridiculous for a woman to me. However gifted they may be in these fields, they ought not to display their talents to the public."

Mme Roland (wife of the Girondin minister of the interior: she was executed in the fall of 1793 by the Jacobin government)

12. "Woe indeed to those women who, scorning the glorious destiny to which they are called, express, in order to free themselves of their duties, the absurd ambition to take over men's responsibilities."

Mme Tellien. April 1794