French Revolution Women

Women and the French Revolution is important because women were able to overcome some major obstacles in their lifetime. Difficulties plagued many people throughout the French Revolution. Men, women and children were all effected by the Revolution and all in different manners. The French Revolution is defined as the time when the monarchy was overthrown until Napoleon toke power over France. The Revolution began in 1789 prompting many changes in a few short years. The Revolution ended with Napoleon’s reign in 1799. Although there are many changes that took place after Napoleon took charge, this paper will focus on those ten years where Revolutionary changes took place and the main revolutionary acts were instituted. There are a couple of terms

This was the main idea of bourgeois women. Working women wanted to have better rights for themselves to allow them to be home with their children instead of working in factories. Women were not allowed to participate in politics because they were not considered citizens. One woman wrote a document to show the rights of women, her name was Olympe de Gouges. She was advocating for the rights women should have just like the men in the country. This document was written in the third year of the revolution, 1791. The first of the rules, “1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.” shows just how women wanted to have the same rights as men in the country. The last one she mentions is rather interesting, “17. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for each of them an inviolable and sacred right, and no one may be deprived of it as a true patrimony of nature, except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and then on condition of a just compensation in advance.” She is advocating for women to have rights to property, which for the time would be highly unusual because the men typically had the land in their possession. These are just two of the many rights that Olypme de Gouges wanted women to have. The unfortunate part about these rights is they were never made official by the government. The Rights of Man and Citizen was the official document and it did not include women in its laws. This was just one of many struggles women faced during the