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Mia Myers
HIST 1120 & ENGL 1150
Profs. Epstein and Whorton
11 October 2016
Revolutionary Rights Club: No Girls Allowed
Women around the world have historically been shoved aside in regards to obtaining
rights. Men had the right to vote in the United States of America for nearly 150 years before
women did. The oppression of women reached its paramount in France during the late 1700s.
The French people had recently gone through a revolution and were in the process of creating a
new government system. Creating their system involved writing the basic rights of citizens of the
country of France. Although the French Revolution tried to expand the rights of all people, the
revolutionaries were reluctant to include women because of past customs and the many
prejudices against femininity.
From the beginning of the revolution, men had only one goal to achieve: their own
emancipation. R. B. Rose writes about mans one goal in the revolution in her article Feminism,
Women, and the French Revolution and states, the bourgeois revolution was a revolution for
and by men, therefore the French Revolution was a revolution against women (Rose 191). The
men in charge of the revolution and those that were placed in power immediately gratified mans
rights to vote and to be a citizen. The men in power gave men their rights immediately because
they saw how their gender had been wronged under the previous monarchy, and they sought to
correct that wrong as quickly as possible. However, womans rights were not granted as
immediately as mens were. In fact, it took many years for women to gain all of the rights men

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were given immediately. The men in power did not see their female counterparts as having been
wronged of their rights as the men had. Although many women wrote petitions to the king and
the government to obtain the same rights as men, women were not given any sort of rights
besides that of citizenship. The constant refusal of the king to give women the right to vote and
the right to other things such as holding office positions shows how women were seen in this
time period and how little say women had in public affairs in regards to the general rights of
citizens.
Women were seen as dependents and as a gender subordinate to men; they were seen this
way because historically women had been inferior to men. A commonly heard argument for
subordination to men was that of the fall of mankind, and how Eve was the one who first fell.
Shortly after, Adam joined Eve by eating the forbidden fruit as well. Since Eve was first tempted,
many societies across the European continent felt that women were not fit to be in positions of
power and responsibility. These societies thought women were easily succumbed to temptation
and should not be in a position of power. This argument of women not being fit to be in charge of
anything starkly contrasted with the feminist ideology that was emerging at the time. Writers
Annette Timm and Joshua Sanborn explain this concept in their book Gender, Sex, and the
Shaping of Modern Europe: A History from the French Revolution to the Present Day by saying,
This notion of equality directly conflicted with the patriarchal model of inequality, particularly
between the sexes, that preceded it. The ideas of equality embedded in revolutionary discourse
provided a language for various disaffected groups throughout Europe to assert claims for
increased political and social rights (Timm and Sanborn 9). The notion of femininity and
being pro-womens rights was considered absurd because history had not let women be in control
of their own lives and have rights. The government was able to interfere with the rights of

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women because historically women had not had rights. Because of this historical fact, the king
and the government did not give women any rights for a long time, even when women petitioned
the king for their rights.
Another commonly heard argument for womens subordination is that of natural
inequality between men and women. Many Frenchmen observed the fact that there were
differences between man and women given by God and by nature and used this difference to
promote their objective of excluding women from obtaining the common rights of a man (Timm
and Sanborn 23). Using this argument as a stepping stone, men were able to convince the
national authority that women did not need any rights other than basic citizenship. Suzanne
Desan describes this idea of women not needing rights in her article The Politics of Intimacy:
Marriage and Citizenship in the French Revolution. She explains, Many club members and
authors expressly rejected the notion that since wives had potent, seductive sway over their
husbands, they had no need for legal rights within marriage (Desan 642). Therefore, the
government did not give women any rights beyond that of a very basic citizenship. Women tried
to use this perceived difference as a positive difference. They petitioned that women were more
gentle than men and could see the emotion behind politics. Women who petitioned the king using
this argument claimed that the women could help their husbands and brothers see a different side
of a policy or decree and help the men accept what was decreed by the king or by the
government. The government did not see this as an advantage and refused to grant women their
rights based on what the government thought was the better argument. Women were intentionally
left out of the expansion of rights because the men in charge viewed them as inferior.
Even when women achieved some rights, their rights were very limited. R. B. Rose
explains how French women achieved their first rights by saying, the French Revolutionary

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Constitution of 1791 made women citizens of a kind, if only passive citizens, unable to vote or
stand for public office (Rose 193). This constitution explicitly rejected the womens plea for the
right to vote and further restricted their rights as they could not participate in political bodies
(Timm and Sanborn 31). Furthermore, women could not appear in court, sue anyone, or even
acquire property without their husbands permission (Rose 195). Obtaining a husbands
permission is very provincial for this time period. All around the world women are beginning to
speak their voice and gain rights, yet France had not yet given women even the least of their
rights. These rules were put in place by the government to further tie women to their male
counterparts instead of giving women their own rights. Binding women to men in this way
prevents women from being able to speak out or use their voices independently from their
husbands or brothers. The blatant prohibition of womens rights and the restriction of the few
rights they did have show how men and those in power in government saw women and how
women were treated in respect to their rights.
When it came time to declare individual rights, women were not included because they
were held to a different standard than men. The standard that many women had in society was
much lower than the standard for men at that time. Women were seen as homemakers, not fit for
public debates or anything besides affairs at the home. R. B. Rose agrees when she writes, the
public sphere was henceforth exclusively dominated by men, and women were relegated to a
purely domestic role (Rose 193). Women were encouraged to participate in politics and
meetings, but men had a different plan for how they were to go about participating. Suzanne
Desan explains this by writing, the revolutionaries certainly encouraged a domestic political
role for women and the glorification of marriage rested on cultivating (and debating) distinctly
different gender characteristics for women and men (Desan 631). Whereas men were highly

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encouraged to be in political clubs and share their beliefs about the revolution, women were to be
at the home with the children and were expected to keep to themselves. This double standard of
sharing beliefs was epitomized during the creation of the Frenchmens rights shortly after the
French Revolution. Before the revolution, women were beginning to gather and hold their own
political discussions with other women in their homes or in shops. After the Frenchmen declared
their rights, women were no longer encouraged to gather and hold those discussions as men
were. Women were encouraged to stay more in the private sphere, the sphere that revolved
around the household and the rearing of children, while men were wanted out in the public
sphere debating politics and speaking out about the government. The changing and addition of
rights morphed the public sphere into one of complete masculinity as women were no longer
encouraged to debate and discuss with men as they had been able to before the expansion of
rights. This changed public sphere prevented women from speaking out and hindered their
natural rights as a free-speaking individual citizen of the state.
Women eventually received the full rights that their men counterparts did after the
revolution. Through their struggles and many years of petitioning, women were given all of the
rights that their husbands and brothers had. The womans journey towards complete
emancipation in France was a defining part of the French Revolution. Giving women the same
rights as the government had given to men was an important pro-feminism move for European
countries at that time. Women obtaining their rights in France brought on a bigger and better
understanding throughout all of Europe that women were capable and should have the same
rights as a man does. The French Revolution brought on big changes to the country and to how
French was viewed by surrounding countries. Most of these changes were positive, such as a
better definition of many of the faulty policies in the old French monarchy and a renewed sense

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of states and nationality; however, the transformation in womens rights was not a change for the
better for a long time. After women achieved their full rights as men had, France as a nation
fared better than before because of the many advantages women brought to debates and to voting
elections.

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Works Cited
Desan, Suzanne. "The Politics of Intimacy: Marriage and Citizenship in the French
Revolution." Women, Gender, and the Enlightenment. Ed. Sarah Knott and Barbara
Taylor. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. 630-48.
Rose, R. B. "Feminism, Women and the French Revolution." Historical Reflections / Rflexions
Historiques, vol. 21, no. 1, 1995, pp. 187-205.
Timm, Annette F., and Joshua A. Sanborn. Gender, Sex, and the Shaping of Modern Europe: A
History from the French Revolution to the Present Day. Berg, 2007.