PURPOSE: What is the main reason that caused women to take part in the French Revolution?
THESIS: Women took part in the French Revolution primarily because of writings like Olympe de Gouges's Declaration on the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen and Nicolas de Condorcet's On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship; if not for women being educated by such publications, they would not have been inspired to participate in the revolution alongside the men.
DEFINITIONS:
Olympe de Gouges
Marquis and Sophie Concordet
Mary Wollstonecraft
Etta Palm d'Aelders
TYPES OF SOURCES:
Primary Sources: June 20, 1789: Tennis Court Oath; August 27, 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen; 1793: Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen; 1795: Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen; Nicolas de Concordet, July 1790: On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship; Olympe de Gouge, 1791: Declaration on the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen; Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Various Revolutionary Pamphlets; Various Protestant Reformation Pamphlets; 1789: List of Grievances and Claims of Women; Lequino, February 17, 1792: Plea for Divorce and Women's Freedom; Guyomar, April 29, 1793: National Convention Speech on Women's Rights; Etta Palm d'Aelders, December 30, 1790: Discourse on the Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, at the Expense of Women; Paris, France, October 5, 1789: Engraving of the Women's March on Versailles; July 9, 1793: Regulations of the Society of Revolutionary Women;
Secondary Sources: N/A at this current point in time
OUTLINE:
A. Background on the French Revolution
1. Tennis Court Oath
2. National Assembly
B. Documents for the Rights of Men
1. "Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights," (Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789)
2. "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law," (Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789)
3. "The aim of the society is the common welfare," (Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1793)
4. "The rights of man in society are liberty, equality, security, property," (Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen 1795)
C. On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship
1. Condorcet: A man who also believes that women deserve equal rights
2. Believed that women were certainly capable of exercising the same rights as men
3. "Is there a stronger proof of the power of habit even among enlightened men than seeing the principle of equality of rights invoked in favor of three or four hundred men deprived of their rights by an absurd prejudice [perhaps he is thinking of actors here] and at the same time forgetting those rights when it comes to twelve million women?" (Condorcet)
4. "Now the rights of men follow only from the fact that they are feeling beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning about these ideas. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily have equal rights," (Condorcet)
5. "Either no individual in mankind has true rights, or all have the same ones; and whoever votes against the right of another, whatever be his religion, his color, or his sex, has from that moment abjured his own rights," (Condorcet)
6. "It is said that women have never been guided by what is called reason despite much intelligence, wisdom, and a faculty for reasoning developed to the same degree as in subtle dialecticians. This observation is false: they have not conducted themselves, it is true, according to the reason of men but rather according to their own. Their interests not being the same due to the defects of the laws, the same things not having for them at all the same importance as for us, they can, without being unreasonable, determine their course of action according to other principles and work toward a different goal," (Condorcet)
7. "If one admits such arguments against women, it would also be necessary to take away the rights of citizenship from that portion of the people who, having to work without respite, can neither acquire enlightenment nor exercise its reason, and soon little by little the only men who would be permitted to be citizens would be those who had followed a course in public law," (Condorcet)
D. Declaration on the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen
1. Olympe de Gouges's challenge to women to rise up and defend their rights
a. "Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights," (de Gouges)
b. "Do you fear that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long ensnared by political practices now out of date, will only say again to you: women, what is there in common between you and us? Everything, you will have to answer," (de Gouges)
2. A potential social contract is provided to be used between a man and a woman
E. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1. Mary Wollstonecraft's multi-chapter piece on the rights women should have
2. One of the first lengthy treatises written for the benefit of women
F. Similarities to the Protestant Reformation pamphlets
1. Revolutionary pamphlets were distributed to spread the word
2. Reformation pamphlets were one of the main reasons that Luther's reformation was able to take place
G. Female Reactions
1. Discourse on the Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, at the Expense of Women
a. Etta Palm d'Aelders provides a more aggressive argument for gender equality
b. "Justice must be the first virtue of free men, and justice demands that the laws be the same for all beings, like the air and the sun. And yet everywhere, the laws favor men at the expense of women, because everywhere power is in your hands," (d'Aelders)
2. List of Grievances and Claims of Women
a. "The men persisted in making us victims of their pride and their injustice," (List of Grievances and Claims of Women)
H. Male Reactions
1. Plea for Divorce and Women's Freedom
a. Lequino, a lawyer, gives a speech to the Legislative assembly asking for women's freedom
b. "Among all nations women have lived so far in dependence on their husbands, or rather in a true state of slavery, still graduated over despotism in the political system of government," (Lequino)
2. Guyomar gives a speech to the National Convention about human equality
a. "Freeing women from slavery withering humanity as we break the chains of our neighbors," (Guyomar)
I. Women Taking Action
1. March on Versailles that was primarily attended by women
2. Society of Revolutionary Republic Women
WORKS CITED:
d'Aelders, E.P. (1790, December 30). Discourse on the injustice of the laws in favor of men, at the expense of women. Retrieved from http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/476/
de Condorcet, N. (1790, July). On the admission of women to the rights of citizenship. Retrieved from http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/292/
de Gouges, O. (1791). Declaration on the rights of woman and the female citizen. Retrieved from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1791degouge1.html
Declaration of the rights of man. (1789, August 26). Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
Declaration of the rights of man and citizen. (1793). Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/~iw6/docs/dec1793.html
Declaration of rights and duties of man and citizen. (1795, October 26). Retrieved from http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/298/
Guyomar, . (1793, April 29). National convention speech on women. Retrieved from http://icp.ge.ch/po/cliotexte/xviiie-et-xixe-siecle-epoque-de-la-revolution-francaise/la-revolution-francaise
List of grievances and claims of women. (1789). Retrieved from http://icp.ge.ch/po/cliotexte/xviiie-et-xixe-siecle-epoque-de-la-revolution-francaise/la-revolution-francaise
Olympe, de Gouges. (1791). Declaration on the rights of woman and the female citizen. Retrieved from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1791degouge1.html
Regulations of the society of revolutionary republican women. (1793, July 9). Retrieved from http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/481/
The oath of the tennis court. (1789, June 20). Retrieved from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/tennis_oath.html
Wollstonecraft, Mary. (1792). A vindication of the rights of women. Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/144/
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