Question

Explain the role played by women in France.

Answer 1

It can be understood as:

During the French Revolution, women, especially in Paris, stepped out of their traditional domestic role as a mother and wife, and extended into the turbulent world of revolutionary politics. They were directly involved with major events, such as the attack on the Bastille, the October Days of 1789, the Reign of Terror, and bread riots throughout the revolution. Women also experienced the new and short-lived phenomenon of mixed and women’s-only clubs such as the Les Amies de la Verite and the Club des Citoyennes Republicaines Revolutionnaires. The feminist movement, guided by Olympe de Gouges, the Marquise de Condorcet, and Etta Palm d’Aelders, had success in the sense that it achieved the most important of its far-reaching goals, but failed in the sense that it did not garner support throughout all social classes. There was a significant difference in the experiences shared by the working-class and aristocrats. Women in participated in the Revolution more than anyone from that time would have imagined possible and more than historians had previously thought. Their role was instrumental in the fate of the revolution and will always be remembered as a time that changed the status of women throughout all of Europe.