The Role of Women in the French Revolution
What did women do to claim their rights?
- made clubs
- discussed the Revolution
- some refused marriage
- petitioned the government
Women in Aristocracy and Royalty
Olympe de Gouges
The Roles of Women
The March on Versailles
- the women of the revolution did more than house work
- feminism
- revolts
- donations
- May 7, 1748
- playwright before Revolution
- end the exclusion of women
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Citizen
- free speech
- capacity of reason
- capacity of moral decision-making
- demanded education and divorce rights
- theater for women
- arrested for defending king
- November 3, 1793
- sent to Guillotine by Jacobins
- serveral roles within the castle
- Élisabeth Vigée LeBrun
- Olympe de Gouges
- Germaine de Staël
- Marie Antoinette
- everyday women were fed up with the fighting
- they could not do their jobs in revolutionary France
- they wanted justice
- they all stood together and marched to the king
Madame de Stael
Women in Everyday Life
- French-Swiss
- April 22, 1766-July 14, 1817
- author
- salons
- highly educated
- heiress
- married a Swedish legate
- supporter of French Revolution
- September Massacres: fled to Switzerland
- continued salons
- drew many French emigrants
- returned to France
- when violence died down
- 1804: conflict w/Napolean
- exile from France
Marie Antoinette
Within the Castle
- Washerwomen, seamstresses, linenworkers, and cooks
- Working class women quickly eastblished clubs
- Organized ideas
- Big role in their family and towns
- Limited views
- mistresses
- bastard children->royalty
- could become royalty w/o legitimacy
- legitimacy could be granted
- maids, servants, and cooks
- spies for other countries
- easily go unnoticed
- queens, duchesses, princesses
- Yolande de Polastron
- Duchess of Polignac
Élisabeth Vigée LeBrun
The Orgin of Feminism
- Vienna, Austria
- November 2, 1755-October 16,1793
- married Louis XVI at 15
- alliance between France and Austria
- few official duties=free time
- gossip
- blamed for France's problems
- aldultery
- sexual abuse and incest
- treason
- April1792- Jacobins vs. Austria
- official painter of Marie Antoinette
- less formal
- portrayed her as devoted mother
- painted middle class lifestyle
- fled during March on Versailles
- w/ daughter and a governess
- returned in 1801
- never strayed from royalist cause
- women began to realize their power
- seen as only sources of pleasure, mothers, and maids
- they demanded equality
- they argued for their rights because they reproduce new citizens
- wanted to vote
Mata Hari
Women's Everyday Lives
- During the revolutionary era women became leaders
- Responsible for getting food for their families
- Lace making employed the largest number of women
- Contributions came from all levles of society
- Employment depended on where they lived in France
- August 1792-mob stormed Tuileries
- monarchy overthrown & locked in tower
- December & January
- Louis put on trial & executed
- July 1793
- lost custody of son
- October 1793
- convicted of treason
- sent to guillotine
- Dutch born women
- Shot by the French as a spy
- Some say she wasn't ever a spy
- Spies had a big impact on affecting the French Revolution