Defining Humanity: Gender and Equality In the French revolution ______

Erin K. Sheek April 8, 2013 DePauw University

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Table of Contents

Introduction … 7

Chapter I: Meanings of humanity in the 18th century: Exploring the gender divide … 12

Chapter II: What did it mean to be a woman in the 18th century? … 26

Chapter III: Test Case - The National Convention … 39

Conclusion … 54

Bibliography … 58

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Acknowledgements

A week before this thesis was due, my father called and asked how the project was

coming along. The first thing that came to mind was directly from the film Jerry Maguire, when

Tom Cruise yelled, “it is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing SIEGE that I will never fully tell you

about, okay??” While saying that to my father may have been somewhat of a joke, I certainly could not have made it through this arduous journey without all of the support I received from faculty, family, and friends over the year.

I would first like to sincerely thank my advising committee. James Ward, Barbara

Whitehead, and Meryl Altman have put so much time and energy into this project all year long.

From countless meetings and edited drafts to pep talks and research assistance, they have been there every step of the way. This thesis would not have been possible without them.

To Kevin Moore, Amy Welch, and Peg Lemley for guiding me through four years of the Honor Scholar program and making sure that I made every deadline and kept my sanity when things got tough. They made our Honor Scholar community feel like a family, one of the things

that I will miss most after DePauw. I would also like to thank my parents for always being there

for me and giving me so much moral support throughout my entire college career, especially

during the process of this Honor Scholar thesis.

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6 Introduction

“Legend has it that in France the eighteenth century was the century of women…” - Lieselotte Steinbrugge

The French Revolution is legendary for being a time when freedom and equality prevailed over an oppressive, archaic system. Throughout the earliest period of revolution and turmoil in France, much of the discourse within the new political factions focused on human rights. These rights were tied strictly to the idea of citizenship, as defined by humanity.

Unfortunately for millions of French women, these rights of citizenship were not grounded in equality -- they were determined by socially constructed gender spheres and Enlightenment concepts of humanity. “In the process [of constructing gender], historically specific, normative definitions of gender (which were taken as givens) were reproduced and embedded in the culture of the French working class.”1 The term “spheres” is most accurate to describe the relationships

between the sexes because men and women were never seen as being equal, due to the definition of women. Aristotle, “the most influential non-Christian source for ideas in many fields up to the seventeenth century,” posed a fundamental question that clearly defined what this critical difference was. “What are women for?” stood in stark contrast to his other query, “What is man?”2 Women were objects, an imperfect companion to man, and were not their own

autonomous, capable individual. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, esteemed Enlightenment philosopher,

agreed, writing, “Woman is specifically made for man’s delight…the reward which he

deserves.”3 The extent of the prejudice against women, because of their gender, is evident

throughout the period. While during the French Revolution rights of “universal equality” were

1 Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis,” The American Historical Review 91, 5 (December 1986): 1073. 2 Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (New York, NY: Cambridge, 1993), 11. 3 John Darling and Maaike Van De Pijpekamp, “Rousseau on Education, Domination and Violation of Women,” British Journal of Educational Studies 42, 2 (June 1994): 126.

7 eventually granted to all men, including many minority groups (like slaves, religious minorities,

and ethnic minorities), these rights were never given to women. There were those within the

government, as well as common French individuals, who fought and argued ceaselessly for

women’s right to this newfound freedom, to no avail. Why was gendered prejudice the most

important factor for rights during the revolution? The answer lies, according to 18th century

British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, in the “progressive minds” and deep-rooted

“pathological thinking” of the Enlightenment.4 Man was defined as an individual with the

ability to reason; it was this that distinguished men from animals. However, women by their

very nature were incapable of reasoning and so were not considered human or equal to men.

Thus, the prejudice against women prevailed throughout the revolutionary period.

The literature used for this study has inspired and strengthened this argument, as well as

revealed a gap in the study and state of the debate. The main source used was Lynn Hunt’s

Inventing Human Rights. It is a detailed history on the birth of human rights during the French

Revolution, following the most important debates and pieces of legislation that came of the new

ideals of rights versus those of privilege. The period of the French Revolution and its debates on

universal rights shaped the political and social spheres of the coming centuries. Hunt discusses

the evolution of humanity and the paradoxes of claims of “self-evident” rights and “universal” rights. She explores the discourse of the human rights revolution and the women’s rights movement, namely through this specific period in French history. Her work, including an extensive document collection titled The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief

Documentary History, is featured strongly in this argument. Hunt believes that the autonomous

“self” has always been shaped by “social and cultural factors,” which is why the French

Revolution, a time full of new social and cultural factors, radical change, and progress, is a

4 Ibid., 122.

8 logical lens through which to observe human rights advancement.5 The experiences of individuals during the revolution “made possible new social and political concepts (human rights),” and allowed human rights to become self-evident over time.6

While Hunt’s work was crucial to understanding the history of human rights during the

French Revolution and the dialogues that took place, Lieselotte Steinbrugge’s work was just as

necessary to understanding the deeper women’s issues during the same time period. The Moral

Sex: Women’s Nature in the French Enlightenment exemplifies how the “nature” of women was

created during the Enlightenment and how the new gender roles in turn created the issue of

women’s rights during the revolution. Women were forced into simple groupings of being

moral, sensitive, and domestic, in which they completely lacked political efficacy. Being denied

such rights during a time when the entire nation of France was moving towards democracy and

greater equality made women want such things. Steinbrugge focuses on the “division of the

human being into two unequal sexes” and women’s thusly created “natural” state, which became

one of the largest issues of the revolutionary period.7 Her history of women’s roles in the

revolution makes up an important part of the literature surrounding this thesis.

There is a plethora of published works fueling Steinbrugge and Hunt’s claims that the

reason for women’s inequality was the natural state of their gender. Historian Merry E. Wiesner

wrote of religious influences on the creation of women’s roles and how their mantle as the moral

leaders of society served only to maintain their silence and oppression.8 Author Joan Scott

examined, in both a book and published article, how the gender debate invoked arguments about

the presumed nature of women and how this was used for the justification of every action taken

5 Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007), 32. 6 Ibid., 34. 7 Lieselotte Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex: Woman’s Nature in the French Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 158. 8 Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 11.

9 to continue to keep them in their “natural roles”.9 Women were ambiguously identified as

objects and subjects, betrayed by the revolution, and condemned to their separate sphere.

Historian Karen Offen’s article, “Women’s Memory, Women’s History, Women’s Political

Action: The French Revolution in Retrospect, 1789-1889-1989,” included more about the history of the revolution, such as the stories of important men and women who worked to further the cause of women’s equality.10 Offen covered important details of the women’s march on

Versailles, their petitions to the king and to the new government of the republic, and the

Jacobins’ purposeful subordination of French women in the early 1790s. Sian Reynold’s book,

Women, State, and Revolution: Essays on Power and Gender in Europe Since 1789, was another

piece that explored the history of the revolution and where women fit into these major historical

events.11 Reynold understood how the dominance of men created the reality of female weakness

and made women believe that they were powerless, when in reality they only needed to

overcome their oppression.12 Reynold, like Hunt, argued that the revolution was key to the

beginning of the women’s movement because women began to become more active individuals

and realized their issues and their own potential to solve them. Several other authors, including

Mary Bellhouse, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and Raia Prokhovnik, continued to emphasize the

progression of feminist sentiments and debates on citizenship in the literature.13

9 Joan Wallach Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’: Olympe de Gouges’ Declarations,” History Workshop 28 (1989): 2. 10 Karen Offen, “Women’s Memory, Women’s History, Women’s Political Action: The French Revolution in Retrospect, 1789-1889-1989,” Journal of Women’s History 1, 3 (1990): 214. 11 Sian Reynolds, Women, State, and Revolution: Essays on Power and Gender in Europe since 1789 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), xi. 12 Ibid., 11. 13 Mary L. Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons: Bourgeois Justice, Gendered Virtue, and the Criminalized Other in Eighteenth Century France,” Signs 24, 4 (1999); Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, “Gender, Class, and Power: Some Theoretical Considerations,” The History Teacher 15, 2 (February 1982); Raia Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship: From Gender Invisibility to Feminist Inclusiveness,” Feminist Review 60 (1998).

10 A vital component to the argument made in this paper is the ideologies of Rousseau and the Enlightenment. The studies on Rousseau bring to the forefront of the research the real reasons for women’s inequality. “Repackaging Rousseau,” by Jennifer M. Jones, shows the reliance of 18th-century society on Rousseau -- his ideas about womanhood, education, and the

separation of the public and private spheres reigned supreme.14 Society was indoctrinated

completely into his belief system. Women bought into their new roles in fashion, child rearing, and domesticity, believing the “reality” of the natural differences of the sexes. In Laura Bruce’s article, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” she reemphasizes the importance of Rousseau’s ideology in 18th-century French motherhood.15 Women became the “real

mothers” that society dictated that they needed to be to be good, moral, natural women.

Rousseau had created a campaign to force women into these roles of reproduction and

domesticity under the head of patriarchy, democratic as it may be. There are several secondary

analyses of Rousseau’s book, Emile, which will be explored in the thesis, in which he created his

expectations of women and men, and their roles in society. By analyzing the characters of his

book as real people, particularly Sophie (the main female character of the book), one can

understand Rousseau’s expectations of a utopian society and where individuals would fit into the

world. These articles on Rousseau and his domination of gender, equality, and the family prior

to the revolution will prove the importance of his ideas and how he created the issue in social

mentality.

While all of these articles and books have created a wonderful conversation about the

state of women in the French Revolution, there remains a gap in the literature and a question

unanswered. Why was it impossible to overcome the prejudice against women’s “nature” during

14 Jennifer M. Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau: Femininity and Fashion in Old Regime France,” French Historical Studies 18, 4 (1994): 939. 15 Laura Brace, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” Polity 39, 3 (July 2007): 361.

11 the French Revolution, especially its most radical phase, the National Convention? While Hunt discusses the idea of rights and women’s lack of equality despite their fight for it, and the roots of their movement in the revolution, she does not explain why women could not break through the gendered barrier.16 Steinbrugge reveals the “natural” inequality between men and women,

but she does not claim that the reason the inequality existed was because women’s natural state

exempted them from humanity.17 Most other historians who focus on the gender divide and

Rousseau’s work agree that the problem was women’s perceived state of nature. Women simply

could not escape the fact that they were thought to be physically and mentally incapable of

having rights, equality, and active citizenship.18 But none of the literature explored for this

thesis found that the gender divide, while heavily reinforced by Rousseau and society, was

caused because women were seen as inhuman.19 This argument is important to add to the discussion of the evolution of the women’s issue because it provides a new possible explanation as to why, despite every attempt to gain them, women were never granted citizenship and equality during the revolution.

I. Meanings of humanity in the 18th century: Exploring the gender divide

Prior to the French Revolution, there was an extensive cultural and intellectual

movement, a period of creating new ideologies called the Enlightenment. This era spanned

from 1690 to the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The intent of the Enlightenment’s

eminent leaders was to reform society’s way of thinking. They wanted to move away from the old, traditional beliefs of the past and move towards thoughts grounded in reason. It “tied a

16 Hunt, Inventing Human Rights; Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights. 17 Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex. 18 For example, see the Encyclopédie Française. 19 I thank Barbara Whitehead for suggesting this connection to me.

12 crucial knot between the scientific revolution and a new outlook on life,” and featured a group of

men who “came to believe that the human mind itself was capable of making great progress.”20

The Age of Enlightenment promoted scientific reasoning and logic above all else. It was, in

large part, a challenge to those who were loyal to the Church and to the monarchy. There were

extensive problems in society, within traditional families, in the government, and in the Church,

which supporters of the Enlightenment aimed to expose.21 They wanted to, quite literally,

enlighten mankind to the reality of the world and to endow man with the tools needed to break

free from their oppression. The leaders of the Enlightenment were the ones who “proudly

proclaimed that they were bringing the light of knowledge to their ignorant fellow creatures” -- a

virtuous and lofty goal.22

The Enlightenment created the ideology of the age, and whatever these philosophers

presented was highly influential. The philosophes were the intellectuals of the group and had

attained the highest levels of development of the enlightened mind. Of all the Enlightenment

thinkers across Europe, French philosophes were held in the highest regard. France was the

wealthiest, most cultured and educated country in Europe. Those from such an esteemed nation

were surely ahead of their time, and this prestige greatly appealed to Enlightenment sensibilities.

So when the greatest philosophers of the time spoke out on what the logical meanings and

messages of gender and male-female relationships were, the general populace of France took it

to heart. “One of the greatest achievements of the Enlightenment was, of course, the conception

of human nature.”23 One of the most renowned philosophes of the 18th century, the Baron de

20 John P. McKay, Bennett D. Hill, and John Buckler, Understanding Western Society, Volume 2: A Brief History, From Absolutism to Present (New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011), 499. 21 A. R. Gillis, “Literacy and the Civilization of Violence in 19th-Century France,” Sociological Forum 9, 3 (September 1994): 375. 22 McKay, Hill, and Buckler, Understanding Western Society, 500. 23 Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex, 55.

13 Montesquieu, was the first to spread his message using novels and plays -- mediums that would

reach the public and speak to everyone. Montesquieu believed that the relationships between

men and women were completely “representative of the overall social and political system.”24

He often used historical and current examples of women’s oppression at the hands of men to symbolize the oppression of all people at the hands of tyrannical government. The Baron’s portrayal of the normalcy of women’s oppression, simply for the distinction of their gender, was telling. He recognized that gendered spheres existed, and that the oppression of even one

“minority group” in society was a fundamental cultural, social, and political issue, and he fully supported the disintegration of the gender bias.

The Enlightenment philosophes believed it was their duty to teach the general masses about the ‘truths’ of life, specifically what humanity was and what it meant. But their new ideology, what they gave to the general public, relied on the construction of gender norms and a specific definition of humanity. Voltaire, one of the most well known Enlightenment leaders, wrote of the benefits of mankind as a human, and as part of humanity. He aimed to be a reformer, to show man what he could accomplish, if only man would realize his potential that came from his natural ability to reason. Voltaire stated, “it is man who sways our minds by the prevalence of reason and the native force of truth,” and this was man’s God-given gift.25

Voltaire believed wholeheartedly that this characteristic could only be attributed to men. His mistress, Émelie du Châtelet, was a great intellectual, “one of the principal illuminators of the

Enlightenment,” and an advocate for women’s right to education, quite contrary to the opinions of her lover.26 Voltaire recognized that she was brilliant but even so, he would not admit that a

24 Ibid. 25 McKay, Hill, and Buckler, Understanding Western Society, 502. 26 “Women in Science,” Epigenesys, http://www.epigenesys.eu/index.php/en/science-and-you/women-in- science/662-emilie-du-chatelet (accessed April 5, 2013).

14 woman could possess such traits. In a letter to King Frederick II of Prussia upon the death of

Madame du Châtelet, Voltaire wrote, “he had lost a great friend, a wonderful man whose only

fault was being born a woman.”27 Even when presented with a woman who was obviously just as intelligent as he, Voltaire would not grant that women were mentally tantamount to men. It was understood that man and animal were much the same in body. However, God made man in

His own image and gave him alone the power of reason -- this gift of rationality and individuality were what gave man reign over the rest of the world, including woman.

Perhaps the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment, in terms of popularity and the discourse on gender, was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Assessing Rousseau and his work is “of

perennial importance” because of his immense contributions to the minds and traditions of the

time.28 Rousseau’s ideas had perhaps the greatest impact during the 18th century and he is

widely considered to have been the most influential thinker of the Enlightenment.29 One of his

novels was the “biggest best-seller of the century, and he became a much sought-after author.

The demand for copies outran the supply so badly that booksellers rented it out by the day and

even by the hour, charging twelve sous for sixty minutes… At least seventy editions were

published before 1800 -- probably more than for any other novel in the previous history of

publishing.”30 He was the most popular author and philosopher of the century. There was likely

not a single literal soul who had not studied Rousseau and been much impressed by his tenets.

According to historian Robert Darnton, “to understand how the French read books in the

eighteenth century is to understand how they thought.”31 People believed what they read, “for

27 Voltaire to King Frederick II, “To His Majesty the King of Prussia,” in The Works of Voltaire, Vol. VIII: A Contemporary Version, ed. John Morely (New York, NY: E.R. Dumont, 1901). 28 Darling and Van De Pijpekamp, “Rousseau on Education,” 116. 29 Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau,” 944. 30 Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1985), 242 31 Ibid., 217.

15 reading is a kind of spiritual exercise: it trains one not for literature but for life,” and what they

read was Rousseau.32 His popularity was unmatched by any other philosophe, and the general

literate population of France began to use his metaphors and theories in every day life, from their

letters to the way they raised their children. He offered readers a certain kind of truth that they

could connect with, no matter their social background. As for what people thought of

Rousseau’s writings, “Opinions were divided among men of letters, but in society everyone agreed.”33 Rousseau plays a critical rule in proving the argument of this thesis, and therefore it is of great importance to understand the power he had over society.

Rousseau was best known for his rigid stance on gender roles. Given his “pervasive influence, it is important to identify and clarify his underlying views on women,” and according to him, men and women were radically and inherently different beings.34 Women were

“destined by nature to assume a passive role in sexual relations,” as well as in any social

situation.35 But Rousseau was not merely insistent that man and woman remain in their separate

spheres. “Rousseau not only regards women’s intellectual potential as inferior to men’s to begin

with, he also considers the intentional development and encouragement of women’s mental

capacities unnatural.”36 He critiqued women for their vapid natures and insisted that this was

part of their nature because they had no ability to reason. His criticisms led to public calls for

women to “renounce their frivolous ways [as something that was clear from their new affinity for

fashion] and stay at home.”37 Much of the ideology that framed the revolutionary period post-

Enlightenment came from Rousseau’s published works. Rousseau “constructed [in his writing] a

32 Ibid., 226. 33 Ibid., 246. 34 Darling and Van De Pijpekamp, “Rousseau on Education,” 116. 35 McKay, Hill, and Buckler, Understanding Western Society, 509. 36 Steinbrugge. The Moral Sex, 56. 37 McKay, Hill, and Buckler, Understanding Western Society, 509.

16 cleverly designed literary apparatus that concealed the full force of his criticism of women,” clear in his intent to purposefully continue and assist the oppression of women.38 His writings meant to attack women and to keep them in their place “in a period of mounting opposition to hierarchy and inequality that threatened to destroy not just anachronistic political regimes, but patriarchy as well.”39 Rousseau published Emile, ou de l’Education in 1762, and he considered it to be the best and most important of any of his writings, something that would implore the people of France to see his reasoning and oppose the women’s movement.40

Emile focused on education and the nature of man, and it was the latter that held the greatest focus for the general public of France. The fifth book of Emile discussed the nature of women as a separate individual being and in relation to men. The main character of the chapter,

Sophie, was ready for marriage to the protagonist, Emile, but for their marriage to succeed they first had to explore the differences of their sexes. According to Rousseau, it was Sophie’s duty as both wife and woman to play her role in humanity, as part of “the physical and moral order.”41

Men and women certainly had traits in common, but these traits were almost entirely physical.

“But for her sex, woman is as a man; she has the same organs, the same needs, the same faculties… Yet where the sex is concerned, man and woman are unalike; each is the compliment of the other, the difficulty in comparing them lies in…what is a matter of sex [gender] and what is not.”42 Sex, as the gender difference specifically, was the only thing that mattered in differentiating women in body and spirit from men -- this was the difference. However, there was a reason that gender was such a prevalent factor in the ideologies, which was what

38 Emanuele Saccarelli, “The Machiavellian Rousseau: Gender and Family Reactions in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” Political Theory 37, 4 (August 2009): 484. 39 Ibid. 40 Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau,” 947. 41 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile ou de l’Éducation (1762), 321. 42 Ibid.

17 Rousseau’s description of the more intimate differences between men and women proved.

“Despite a strong egalitarian strain in Rousseau (distinctions of rank [class], for example, are

pronounced to be artificial), inequality between the sexes is seen not as a human construction,

but as something inherent in the nature of men and women.”43 There was absolutely a hierarchy

of superiority of the sexes, as each sex “pursues the path marked out for it by nature.”44 Man

was depicted as an abstract being, with unlimited potential and no forced social roles, while

woman was static in her place. Nature determined that men should be strong and active (surely a

political connotation was included there) and that women be weak and passive in every aspect of

life. An ideal man and his perfect wife demonstrated the union of the sexes, and within their

union there should be no similarities in their mental abilities. But why? The answer to the entire

question of gendered prejudice lies in Rousseau’s description of women’s nature. Man was

endowed with reason and the female “creature” was not.45 She was not capable of reason, and it

was not necessary for women to even attempt to cultivate it, because they already had a natural

place in society. “The female sex may have quicker and more precise perceptions [a woman’s

intuition, so to speak], but women are incapable of abstraction and thus of cognitive

accomplishments comparable to men’s.”46 These things should not be contested because the

“differences in the sexes should be respected as nature’s handiwork.”47 God bestowed upon both

man and woman a great honor by giving them great passions, but the difference was that God

gave man alone the ability to reason. Woman was not an animal, but she was not the same

creature as man -- she existed somewhere in between, in the private sphere. This she could not

43 Darling and Van De Pijpekamp, “Rousseau on Education,” 118. 44 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile ou de l’Éducation (1762), 322. 45 Ibid., 323. 46 Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex, 40; Barbara Whitehead, “An Analysis of Casanova on Women: 18th-Century Traditional Values in the Icosameron,” Unpublished Paper, DePauw University (October 2004): 9. 47 Darling and Van De Pijpekamp, “Rousseau on Education,” 118.

18 escape. Men could be whoever they wanted to be, in both the public and private spheres, but women could never forget their sex.

Examples of Rousseau’s philosophy were widespread in the late 18th-century. There was

a strong reliance on Rousseau as “the exemplar of eighteenth century conceptions of

womanhood.”48 Whatever he said, especially on his unwavering opinions about sex, was generally adopted as the norm. “It was Rousseau’s position [on human nature] that gained the widest influence.”49 These strictly separate spheres were very much established in society, and

Rousseau’s explanation made it clear that the differences between man and woman were a

biological fact. Gender was “the social form of biological sexuality, but it is best understood as the relations between men and women,” and this was exactly how it was understood at the time of Rousseau, the Enlightenment, and the revolution.50 To them, their physical sex was their gender. The physical gender differences became the mental, thus the terms and ideas (physical properties versus socially constructed ideas) were interchangeable. According to French anthropologist Maurice Godelier,

It is not sexuality which haunts society, but society which haunts the body’s sexuality. Sex-related differences between bodies are continually summoned as testimony to social relations and phenomena that have nothing to do with sexuality. Not only as testimony to, but also testimony for -- in other words, as legitimation.51

It is important to understand why cultures and societies transformed biology into gender because

the gender spheres and their creation of social differences were critical to the repression of

48 Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau,” 941. 49 Steinbrugge. The Moral Sex, 5. 50 Fox-Genovese, “Gender, Class, and Power: Some Theoretical Considerations,” 255. 51 Maurice Godelier, “The Origins of Male Domination,” as quoted in Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 1069.

19 women’s equality as a part of humanity and political rights. People’s social identities were

claimed as their natural identities.52

Giacomo Casanova, the Italian philanderer and author, was a well-known cultural figure

who emulated and promoted Rousseau’s ideology in his own work. He was not a philosophe,

but he was a great friend of Voltaire’s and Enlightenment thinking was prevalent throughout his

entire novel, Icosameron. His dedication to the ideology reveals how internationally widespread

and accepted such beliefs were, for his entire work reads as a tribute to Rousseau’s conservative

thoughts on gender. In Casanova’s tale, a brother and sister travel to the center of the earth and

meet a group of inhuman “creatures,” the Megamicrans, who were very intelligent and spent

their days in profound philosophical discussion.53 The brother and narrator of the tale, Edward,

explained that these creatures were androgynous, having no external genitalia or gender.

However, “because of their breasts,” he said, “we had thought them female. These breasts start

below the neck and end in the stomach area… We discovered later that they were neither male

nor female.”54 Casanova reiterated throughout the entire book that this society placed great importance on the breasts of these creatures and on the act of breastfeeding as a means of nurturing and nourishment, just as Rousseau believed was true with motherhood. But despite

such a strong indication of feminine nature, when Edward first saw the Megamicrans he thought

that “they appeared to be male, except from the throat down.”55 In historian Barbara

Whitehead’s study of the Icosameron, she remarked on the strangeness of Edward’s assumption

that these creatures would be male, even after he and his sister had taken part in the breastfeeding

52 Ibid., 256. 53 Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Icosameron, or The Story of Edward and Elizabeth Who Spent Eighty-One Years in the Land of the Megamicres, Original Inhabitants of Protocosmos in the Interior of Our Globe (New York, NY: Jenna Press, 1986), 26. 54 Ibid., 27. 55 Ibid., 20.

20 ritual.56 Upon entering the city of the Megamicrans, Edward comments that “there were no old

people…nor did we see women.57 Although he knew that these creatures were neither male nor

female, and though they physically appeared to be female, he chose to view them as male,

“explicitly talking of ‘brothers’ and referring to ‘him’ and ‘he’.”58 The only possible answer was that Edward was assumed their gender (something the Megamicrans did not have in their society) from their mental capacities. They were “eminently rational, thoughtful, productive creatures who appear to be philosophes in miniature.”59 They were educated as men in the 18th century were, studying “religion, music, geography, civil and criminal law, and in the elements of all the sciences.”60 Casanova, like Voltaire with his mistress, could not associate such commendable mental ability with women, no matter how much evidence there might have been that women were rational creatures. In Icosameron, Casanova clearly adopted Rousseau’s

beliefs about the differences between men and women, seeing and arguing that reason was

inherently the explanation for the separation.

Rousseau argued that because of their “sexuality” (and thus, the natural, predetermined

rational state of their gender), men were able to hold their positions of power. For men, it was

their gender that predetermined their ability to hold power in society, and the same vice versa for

women. Prior to the revolution, this “familial model of authority [i.e. monarchy]” strongly

supported the cultural tradition of patriarchy. The “patriarchal institutions left much of those

gender systems intact including cultural traditions of male and female space.”61 There were no

widely supported motions to fight against the inequality of women at this time, because the rights

56 Whitehead, “An Analysis of Casanova on Women,” 7. 57 Casanova, Icosameron, 50. 58 Whitehead, “An Analysis of Casanova on Women,” 8. 59 Ibid., 11. 60 Casanova, Icosameron, 59. 61 Fox-Genovese, “Gender, Class, and Power,” 265.

21 of men were what mattered to the (largely male) public. “The rights he [man] exercised were not

individual rights, but special cases of collective rights” that he was entitled to simply because of

his gender.62 But when the revolution crushed the long-standing authoritarian monarchy, there

was an opportunity to change such traditions. Understanding what changed in the public

perception of gender spheres before and after the Revolution, and considering Enlightenment

thinking, is critical to understanding the development (or lack thereof) of gender equality in 18th- century France.

Everything about French society in the 18th century was affected by the perceived

inequality of women, including cultural and consumer aspects. France prided itself during the

Enlightenment on being a much more intellectual, sophisticated nation than any other in Europe,

and its rich art culture was a great part of this. Art often reflects the sentiments of the time when

it was created, and throughout the 18th century, art practices in France tended to “serve to

reinforce new bourgeois constructions of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ gender identity.”63 The figure

of the woman depicted in art was “not a being but a signification, wholly arbitrary and

fundamentally unstable because [she was] dependent for its meaning on the relational structure

of language. She is a complex, discursive site of sociosymbolic stabilization and destabilization,

a site of cultural meanings that are constructed.”64 Sexual differences were obvious in the art

world, and it was clear that women were at the mercy of others to determine their roles in society

and that they were objects to be used. The only thing that mattered about women to the French

public was their gender, signifying that their very meaning and purpose in life was constructed.

Language was also full of cultural meanings and substantive proof of the gender divides between

62 Ibid. 63 Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons,” 940. 64 Linda M. Zerilli, Signifying Woman: Culture and Chaos in Rousseau, Burke, and Mill as quoted in Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons,” 960.

22 men and women, as will be discussed later in this thesis. There was a deep gender bias, with

heavy references back to Rousseau, in the fashion industry as well as the art world. The French

fashion industry repackaged Rousseau’s ideas about women in a way that benefitted them

commercially, and which “reveal the interplay between eighteenth century discourses on gender

and commerce and the connections between cultural ideals of femininity and the social practices

of selling and marketing clothes.”65 The new representations of the ideal female character, as

dictated by nature (according to Rousseau), were sold to the public through culture, i.e. art,

fashion, novels, and published literature.66 What became popular in common culture were the

most widespread and widely accepted norms. A woman’s “consumption of fashions and

attention to her appearance, far from threatening her family, improved domestic harmony by

simultaneously pleasing her husband and symbolizing her care for her family; the consumption

of fashions was now compatible with both good taste and domesticity.”67 Rousseau’s argument

for what constituted gender was clear in every aspect of French culture and illustrated how these

ideologies came to fruition.

As author Mary Bellhouse argues, gender is a shifting concept that is historically situated,

therefore to understand the role of women in 18th-century France and in the French Revolution, one must understand the role gender played at that time (as seen in philosophy, writings, intellectual movements, and art).68 These mediums show the culture and proper norms of the

time, and through them, it is extremely obvious that the newly conceptualized code of proper

femininity and masculinity, more than any other factor, created the idea that women and men

were not equal. This was promoted by Rousseau and by the famous Encyclopédie.

65 Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau,” 941. 66 Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons,” 968. 67 Jones, “Repackaging Rousseau,” 965. 68 Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons,” 961.

23 The Encyclopédie, published between 1751 and 1772 by editor Diderot, is one of the most important sources of knowledge from the Enlightenment period, and marked the progressive changes in thinking. The definitions in the Encyclopédie were taken from what they, the philosophes and other intellectuals, thought to be truth and what they saw in society. Its definitions of man, woman, and humanity were telling of the social climate, and enhanced

Rousseau’s argument that women were not human as man was human. Man was defined as a complex, developed individual, a human, created by God and brimming with unlimited potential.69 He was a natural being, a moral being, and a political being.70 He “resembles the

animal in a material way [that is to say, physically],” but the difference between their species is what was “in the head”.71 Man was “born in another element”… yes he was born and he

breathed as an animal, he may have had different coloring or origins, but there was one thing that

unites all mankind and which separates him from the animal - the force of the human brain.72

God made man in his image and so gave him the gifts of free will and reason. These special

traits of extended mental capacity were what gave man the right to be the leader on Earth, with

God of course as the higher power. This was what made men superior beings, and it was set forth by the Jacobins in their new social order during the radical phase of the French

Revolution.73 A compliment to man’s superiority was seen in the Encyclopédie’s definition of

humanity. Humanity was “a sentiment of benevolence for all men… This noble and sublime enthusiasm…wishes only to please the universe by abolishing slavery, superstition, vice, and misery.”74 It was man alone, with no mention of woman, who was given the privilege of

69 Encyclopédie Française, 1st ed. (France), 257 (my translation). 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 3. 74 Encyclopédie Française, 348.

24 inclusion in the definition of what was and was not human. The protection that came with being

a part of humanity, with their promise to abolish every wrong done to humanity, did not extend

to females. Rousseau’s description of men and women in separate spheres was not a simple

indication of social norms -- it was a very real understanding of men and women as completely

different creatures.

Through the Encyclopédie definition of women, the reader finally understands a woman’s

place in the world in the eyes of French Enlightenment thinkers and, because of the movement’s

prevalence and socially accepted ideology, the eyes of the large majority of French society. This

“division du monde,” (world division) according to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, was

based on references to “biological differences and notably those that refer to the division of the

labor of procreation and reproduction,” which operated as “the best-founded of collective

illusions.”75 Woman was “the female of man.”76 Women were property. They were not defined as individuals and they were not defined as human. In the entire encyclopedia’s definition of

“Woman”, the female was only ever described in terms of her physical and natural traits (as a mother, a child bearer, a companion to the male), and as an animal.77 She was never once

labeled as “human” -- she was called “creature” and “animal”. The word “woman” in French

(femme) is the same word used for “wife”. There is no word to describe a single, independent

woman, even today. This definition makes Rousseau’s ideas very clear. Women were not in the

public or civil sphere, as were men -- they were not even in the same sphere as a species.

Women were in a realm between man and animal. Women were seen as dependent on men for

everything they had because they were not independent, and because they did not have the ability

75 Pierre Bourdieu, Le Sens Pratique (Paris, 1980): 366 as quoted in Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 1069. 76 Encyclopédie Française, 348. 77 Ibid.

25 to reason for themselves.78 English philosopher John Locke’s argued that “the mind has no sex,” but this was fundamentally incorrect in 18th-century French society. “With rationality once again

linked to the body…the contrary conclusion becomes almost self-evident that the mind does

have a sex, and that sex is male.”79 If the only thing that differentiated men from animals was

their capability to be rational, and it was believed that women did not possess that ability, then

where did that leave women?

II. What did it mean to be a woman during the 18th Century?

Women of the 18th century in France adhered to the social standards set for them and not

only bought into the “market” that was being sold to them, but created themselves in the “new

female image”.80 They seemed, for the most part, content in their place in society. However,

when the Revolution started in 1789, and people from all classes and races saw promises of

freedom, women began to wonder if their state was really “natural”. Nature and masculine

reason triumphed, and this had become the culture.81 If other minorities could be released from

their oppression, why not women? Society began to see a change in women, in their development from passive females to more active and vocal citoyennes. Even prior to the

“official start” of the revolution on July 14th, 1789, women were publically embracing the idea of

individualism.

On New Years Day 1789, a group of working women published a petition to King Louis

XVI , addressing their grievances and asking simply for the opportunity for educational equality,

writing,

78 Saccarelli, “The Machiavellian Rousseau,” 487. 79 Whitehead, “An Analysis of Casanova on Women,” 8. 80 Fox-Genovese, “Gender, Class, and Power,” 267. 81 Saccarelli, “The Machiavellian Rousseau,” 488.

26 While others make every effort to shake off the last links that still bind them to the imperious remains of feudalism; women -- continual objects of the admiration and scorn of men -- could they not also make their voices heard amidst this general angst?82

The women were strongly influenced by the revolutionary attitudes surrounding them in the

working class culture, and were motivated to write their own set of grievances to the king. They

wrote their petition at a time when many others (men) in society were drawing up such lists of

grievances, called cahiers de doléances, against the monarchy and the higher Estates.83 These cahiers asked for fairer taxes and legal recognition of natural rights. “In the winter and spring of

1789, thousands of men (and a few women by proxy) held meetings to elect deputies and write down their grievances. The effect was immediate…the humblest peasants also voted in their villages and burst forth with complaints.”84 The women hoped that their issues would be read

and appreciated by the king, and that they would be granted the privileges they deserved. They

did not attempt to overstep their boundaries or contradict the authority of men. They pleaded the

true necessity of their demands, writing,

They [the women] were almost all born without wealth; their education is very neglected or very defective… Also, many, solely because they are born girls, are distained by their parents; for Your Majesty should know that we too have names to keep up… We ask to be enlightened, to have work, not in order to usurp men’s authority, but in order to be better esteemed by them.85

The common women were not asking for political or social rights. They were asking to have the privilege of education, to better themselves as mothers, wives and daughters.86 Not for their

personal growth as individuals, but to help raise their sons to be good citizens of France. The

women even insisted that they not be taught science and mathematics, as that would go against

82 “Petition of the Women of the Third Estate to the King,” in The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History , ed. Lynn Hunt (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996), 60. 83 Ibid. 84 Lynn Hunt and others, The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History, Vol. 2 (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 657. 85 Petition of the Women of the Third Estate to the King,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 60. 86 Fox-Genovese, “Gender, Class, and Power,” 268; Saccarelli, “Machiavellian Rousseau,” 486.

27 their natural roles in society and lead them astray.87 They would later come to realize the higher

opportunities that lay before them, but in 1789 these women simply wanted equal education.

The women specifically asked for free schools in which they would be taught principles,

religion, and ethics -- skills that would help them to practice the virtues of the gentler sex,

including gentleness, patience, modesty, and clarity.88 1789 was the year of the revolution, and

though total freedom and equality was far from the intent of the women’s petition (something

specifically focused on gender specific equality) it did begin to inspire female leadership. Prior

to the revolutionary period in France, most women saw themselves as Rousseau’s female ideal.89

Even in this petition of the women to the king, it was obvious that there were women who did

not see themselves as worthy of total equality, but merely worthy of what privileges men deemed proper. However, the fact that women felt they could ask for what they wanted and were willing to take a stand against their government shows that women were no longer completely docile, and that they were starting to see themselves in a different light. They were beginning to conceptualize themselves as citizens, but not yet because they wanted to be in politics. It was because they wanted to “include the family, marriage, and sexuality within the scope of issues in which power - gendered power - [was] acknowledged as being exercised and so properly subject to liberal political principles.”90 One of the ways they felt could impress on society and

government to better their lives was through receiving an education.

This changing image of women (from the viewpoint of some) was very at odds with

Rousseau’s depiction of women, most of which are evident in his chapter of Emile entitled

“Sophie”. Their desire for education was held in particular disdain -- in his words,

87 “Petition of the Women of the Third Estate to the King,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 60. 88 Ibid. 89 Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre, 246. 90 Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship,” 86.

28 Girls and women cannot, and should not, progress beyond a certain stage of thinking. Their knowledge should be directed to concrete objects relating to their practical lives… The search for abstract and speculative truths..is beyond a woman’s grasp. It is their business to apply the principles discovered by men.91

In the chapter on Sophie, Rousseau described what the perfect woman should be by showing

what her characteristics were in contrast to men. Man was aggressive therefore woman was

passive. Man was rational therefore woman was not. God created the two to be companions,

with the man to be the head of the house and the woman was there to serve him by taking care of

the domestic duties. In this scenario, together they are whole.92 Rousseau intended the sexes to be “independent and complimentary,” which meant that the idea of separate spheres was

absolutely necessary for a successful, enlightened society.93 Every privilege that women were granted, they were given with purported benefit of improving the lives of men. Their role in the private sphere, to raise children, keep the home, and to be educated, served no purpose for women as individuals. Everything women were given was done at the expense of their own humanity.

Rousseau’s arguments for the nature of men and women could also be described as social gender construction. From a current perspective, one understands that men and women are not dictated to certain gender roles by nature. While there are undeniably differentiating physical qualities and some potential differences in general character between the sexes, such strict roles based on sexuality alone is a social construction. The men who constructed these ideals, including many Enlightenment philosophes, did so because they believed in the dominance of man.94 In order to convince all of society of this, however, they had to promote their ideas in

91 Steinbrugge. The Moral Sex, 57. 92 Denise Schaeffer, “Reconsidering the Role of Sophie in Rousseau’s ‘Emile’,” Polity 30, 4 (1998): 608. 93 Ibid., 609. 94 William Ray, “Reading Women: Cultural Authority, Gender, and the Novel. The Case of Rousseau,” Eighteenth- Century Studies 27, 3 (1994): 428.

29 publications and literature. What was spread through popular society became imbedded in large part due to the language of such documents.95 Linguistic oppression was a way of twisting the language of documents to discriminate against certain groups of people and to ensure that

“equality” was only allowed for those deemed worthy or capable. This technique was extremely prevalent in Enlightenment writings, as well as in all of the texts that supposedly promoted total equality and freedom during the revolution.

Examples of this language are best seen in the document that holds the most symbolism for the French Revolution, both at the time of its birth and in its legacy today -- the earliest version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The wording of the declaration defined the rights of “citizens” for the entire revolutionary period. For men, this meant inalienable rights, as well as justification and purpose for their revolution. For women, it meant further exclusion and oppression. The National Assembly (the new voice of the revolution) adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen as a rudimentary preamble for a new constitution on August 26, 1789. The document vigorously put forth the most important rights and opinions of the revolutionaries, those that they believed should be naturally guaranteed to all men, not because of their wealth but because of their humanity. The declaration was intended to be accepted by the “majority”, but here it is especially obvious that women were not seen as part of the majority or as part of the community of citizens. The writers of the declaration stated that “ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man that [were] the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption.”96 According to them, the most grievous offense against the common man was the absolute denial of their rights -- not just the oppression of their rights, but the neglect of them. How ironic that these men, the champions of

95 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 5. 96 Schaeffer, “Reconsidering the Role of Sophie in Rousseau’s ‘Emile’,” 608.

30 human rights, who realized that neglect and denial of basic human rights was criminal, ignored

the rights of women and used the language of their new declaration to ensure that women were

excluded from gaining any such rights.

The language of the Declaration is extremely important to the overlapping discourses of equality and gender, as it specifically excluded females in giving every right to “all men” or to

“mankind.”97 The very definition of the word “citizen” was inclusive only of property-owning

males. While today these terms might be understood as referring to a more general, universal

group of people, the linguistic oppression against women was obvious in practice. It was a

powerful technique that tyrannized women through the very language employed, because the

only nouns used in such documents were masculine. To gain citizenship, women had to first

overcome this “gendered subjectivity in the public realm… [Which] must extend to men’s

gendered subjectivity too.”98 When women began to question that rights were offered only to

men, they were vehemently shut down, despite a part of the Declaration that explicitly stated that they had “the right to express one’s thoughts and opinions by means of the press or in any other manner, the right to assemble peacefully… [this] cannot be forbidden.”99 The definition of

“citizen” was not simply something that was understood as male -- it was male. In the French

language, the word with was accompanied with the male pronoun, ‘le citoyen’, and this word

was the only noun used in the entire Declaration of the Rights of Man and le Citoyen. While this

document must have seemed extremely liberal and progressive for its time, it was certainly not

one that embraced absolute equality and the dignity of humanity.

Linguistic oppression proves how ingrained these prejudices against women were in

everyday society -- the authors of such liberating documents did not even question what they

97 “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 77. 98 Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship,” 96. 99 Schaeffer, “Reconsidering the Role of Sophie in Rousseau’s ‘Emile’,” 618.

31 might be ignoring. Although the document was one written at the beginning of a radical

revolution for government and society, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

sharpened the divide between gender spheres and showed that gender weighed heavily in the

discourse of rights.100 Because this document left no room to interpret equality for women, a new document was needed to expose the lingual repression and to create an opportunity for women to approach citizenship and humanity.

This document was the Declarations of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, written by Olympe de Gouges in 1791. There were several things that separated the Declaration of the Rights of Woman from the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In De Gouges’ mind, the most important right attributed to women was the right to resist oppression.101 “The exercise of

the natural rights of woman has no other limits than those that the perpetual tyranny of man

opposes to them; these limits must be reformed according to the laws of nature and reason.”102 It

was clear to De Gouges that all women possessed every single “natural” right that men did, without question, and that it was only because of this idea of the nature of women that men opposed them having these rights. “She maintained that equality, and not special privilege, was the only ground on which women could stand.”103 Hence why the language of the Declaration of

the Rights of Women was so important; where the Declaration of the Rights of Men decreed that

the law was for the greater good (using of course the masculine language to be absolutely certain of who was included in “the greater good”), Olympe de Gouges’ declaration stated that the law should be a declaration of the general will, with all citizenesses and citizens taking part.104 This

100 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 7. 101 Olympe de Gouges, “The Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 124. 102 Ibid. 103 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 9. 104 De Gouges, “The Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 125.

32 “general will” stemmed from every adult in France because this approach to human rights was

not just focused on females, it was completely egalitarian. While touting the greatness of the

qualities possessed by women, De Gouges did not place her fellow women on a moral high

ground. Equality was equality -- if women were to be given all of the same honors and rights as

men, they would be served the same punishments for the same crimes, pay the same taxes, and

equally fulfill and serve all other duties of citizenship.105 Olympe de Gouges did not foresee

these changes in rights of citizenship for women as something that would pamper or favor them.

In fact, she attacked women who acted in accord with their “indulgent, frivolous, seductive”

nature when they could choose to act otherwise.106 She wanted women to be active citizens in

every aspect of the public and private spheres, and her declaration showed why the language of such documents was so important to discussions of equality. Her declaration was a

“supplementary document for the revolution…both an addition and a replacement, something superfluous, but also absolutely necessary for completion. De Gouges declarations were offered…as an additional comment on the meaning of universal rights and as a necessary replacement for official edicts which lacked universality because they were incomplete.”107

It was obvious in the writing of the revolutionary times that women were separated from men on every possible occasion on the basis of humanity. While Rousseau’s ideas of the nature of women were largely accepted without question in the time leading up to the revolution (and yes, by the majority throughout the revolution), opinions began to change among certain groups

and individuals. Several women of the Third Estate, likely a small group of educated ladies, had

obviously read the declaration written by the National Assembly and were some of the first to

openly question, at least in the written history of the French Revolution, why these rights were

105 Ibid., 126. 106 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 9. 107 Ibid., 8.

33 denied to them. These female actors understood that gender inequality was the issue and that

overcoming it by proving that they were not what their “nature” dictated would be their greatest

hurdle. Women had quite often been active participants in the revolution, most notably in their

march on Versailles in October 1789. It was a tremendously significant event in the French

Revolution because although the women were not marching for equal rights (they wanted

markets with fair taxes), they were taking political action against a government that was failing

them.108 This was the right of a citizen, as determined by the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Shortly after the march, in November 1789, women of France decided that it was time again to

petition the government -- this time for their own equality. And so women of the Third Estate

wrote a new petition to the National Assembly that served as a public display by the lower class

women of their potential and in which they made their demands to change laws in favor of

women.

The women began their petition by thanking the men of the National Assembly, with

whom they did have a class connection, for ensuring “equality of rights for all individuals.”109

The language used by the women was gender neutral, and this was key because of their deliberate exclusion of linguistic oppression. They established the clear implications of the

Declaration of the Rights of Man for French society and the hope that it gave to all members of the Third Estate, including themselves. They were not acting as passive citizens -- these women had agency, meaning that they had the power to matter in the public sphere and have a voice for themselves.110 The women accused the National Assembly of allowing thirteen million citizens

of the French nation to remain in slavery by keeping women in the dark ages -- if these men were

108 Karen Offen, “Women’s Memory, Women’s History, Women’s Political Action: The French Revolution in Retrospect, 1789-1889-1989,” Journal of Women’s History 1, 3 (1990): 212. 109 “Women’s Petition to the National Assembly,” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/629/ (accessed February 12, 2013). 110 Brace, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” 382.

34 able to divine the absolute equality of rights, how could they possibly “unjustly withhold them

from the sweetest and most interesting half [the women]” among them?111 The women

recognized that they deserved the right to equality just as much as any man because of so many of the wonderful qualities endowed to them by their gender. In their petition, the women argued their case to the men of the National Assembly using the Declaration of the Rights of Man to cement their argument:

You have decreed that the path to dignities and honors should be open without prejudice to all talents; yet you continue to throw up insurmountable barriers to our own! Open the great book of the past and see what illustrious women have done in all ages, the honor of their provinces, the glory of our sex, and judge what we would be capable of, if your blind presumption, your masculine aristocracy, did not incessantly chain down our courage, our wisdom, and our talents.112

In addition to actively calling out and shaming the behavior of these revolutionaries, the women

put together their own proposal for changes in legislature for the National Assembly to consider

that would create justice for every citoyen and citoyenne of France.

The proposal was not passive. The female authors were not asking for any privilege --

they were telling these men what needed to be changed. The decree they drafted as part of the

petition was written as if by the Assembly itself, saying they did so decree the following

changes. The proposal began with a statement assuming that the National Assembly wished to

“reform the greatest and most universal of abuses, and to repair the wrongs of a six-thousand

year injustice.”113 With such powerful writing and women placing blame for the injustices

against them squarely on the shoulders of the new liberal government, it must have been difficult

for the men not to feel some sense of responsibility. Among the articles in the petition, the

women asked that all privileges of the male sex to be abolished, for the females to enjoy all

111 “Women’s Petition to the National Assembly,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 61. 112 Ibid., 62. 113 Ibid.

35 rights and honors as the males, for the masculine gender to be taken out of the language with the understanding that all genders were equally as noble, and that women should have the right to be appointed to or voted into any political or public office.114 This document was public as well, so

that everyone in France would know that these women had an agenda, and that they had morality and justice backing up their claims. The women ended their petition by stating that they did not intend to overtake men’s roles in government or in society, promising that they would not be overzealous, and emphasizing that they did not find their demands to be excessive. It is clear when reading this document that the women were thinking of themselves as fully human individuals. They did not see their demands as improper, nor did they fear scrutiny from placing themselves in the public sphere. They knew they had the rights to be citizens, but that to earn

their rights, they had to overcome the inequalities against their gender.115

This ideology was broken down in Lieselotte Steinbrugge’s book The Moral Sex:

Woman’s Nature in the French Enlightenment. She began by writing of women’s integration

into intellectual life that led to more progressive correspondence and discussions. However, it

took decidedly longer for women to gain what they wanted because the influence lay not in the

“power of the facts, but rather in the very logic of Enlightenment philosophy.”116 The

Enlightenment held control of the entire social mentality, of which the “feminist dialect…shows that the idea of (human) nature, the paradigm of Enlightenment emancipation in general, when applied to women, comes to mean ‘subsumption’ and ‘limitation’.”117 Women were seen as

unequal, not a full individual, because of their “nature”. Steinbrugge argues that perhaps it was

114 Ibid., 64; Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 10. 115 Brace, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” 373. 116 Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex, 3. 117 Ibid., 5.

36 not simply the missing ingredient of rationality, but woman’s fixture as the ‘moral authority’ of

society that created this inequality.

The exclusion of women from public life and its complement, their regulation to private life, appeared to qualify women particularly for the realm of morality, conceived of in bourgeois society as a genuinely private morality, and one that could only be socially efficacious through the private sphere. And because this morality achieved an increasingly emotional basis in the age of Enlightenment… female nature could be proclaimed as particularly competent as emotional morality. With this, the definition of woman as ‘the sex’ sealed women’s destiny.118

Women had an important role in society, but it was not one of an autonomous individual or a

valued political actor. Their job was to be a wife and a mother, and to be morally stable enough

so as to properly raise the next generation of France and keep society running smoothly from

within their own sphere, of course.119

Another author, the founder of one of the most radical newspapers of the French

Revolution, revealed more of the public feelings about women’s roles in society, but showed

how the tides were changing from Enlightenment ideology. Louis Marie Prudhomme’s article,

“On the Influence of the Revolution on Women,” was not in total opposition to women’s rights though he did strictly conform to gender roles. What would make a man who thought women should have rights, and actually did possess the ones they needed, argue for their strict domesticity? One can point to philosopher Marquis de Condorcet’s theory of habit. The men of the revolution could not have possibly thought they were doing anything wrong if their behavior was so normalized. Prudhomme maintained that women enjoyed their own rights of citizenship just like men, and were never denied the right to speak up as they pleased.120 However, more

important than their equal rights to citizenship was their naturally prescribed social role -- “But

118 Ibid., 6. 119 Brace, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” 362. 120 Louis Marie Prudhomme, “On the Influence of the Revolution on Women,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 129.

37 nature from which society should not depart except in spite of itself, has prescribed to each sex

its respective functions.”121 It was fundamentally wrong for a wife and mother to leave her

family and her home. Prudhomme blamed the revolution for women’s newfound interest in civil

and political independence, which had ordinarily and more rightly inspired men. According to

Prudhomme’s way of thinking, women might be intrigued by the idea of revolution and

citizenship but these things were “useless” to them because they couldn’t possibly understand or

make use of said independence.122 It was not proper or suitable for the weaker sex to be

involved in such disruptive activities of the public sphere, especially because women were so

fortunate as to be the moral leaders of society.123 It would not do to corrupt their sensibilities

with thoughts of revolution. Yes, according to Prudhomme, these women were citizens -- he

even used les citoyennes (the feminine term for citizen) to address them. But they were female

citizens, which meant that they still had to act the way women should. He was, then, suggesting

that women would never gain equality for the sole fault of their gender.

Religion also played a strong role in defining gender roles. According to author Merry E.

Wiesner, “educated men have been…trying to determine what makes [women] different from

men and creating ideals for female behavior and appearance… The ideas of educated men

spread…and served as the basis for law codes which attempted to regulate behavior.”124 Such

powerful ideas were grounded in inherited traditions, most notably religion. In Christianity,

Eve’s initial sin ensured that all women were held equally responsible -- they were weak, irrational, and incapable of being in any positions of power because they would surely make mistakes consistently. In addition, “Jewish traditions and commentaries contained in the Old

121 Ibid., 130. 122 Ibid., 130. 123 Bellhouse, “Crimes and Pardons,” 994. 124 Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 10.

38 Testament and later works continued to view women in a largely negative light.”125 The view of

women in these religions (the most popular religions in 18th-century France) was that their

priorities should be mothering and living moral, domestic lives.126 All women in the Bible and

in the Tanakh were good, passive, obedient wives, daughters, and mothers, and set a perfect

example for the rest of society. Women “had a special place in the cosmos because they bore

children and were thus the end point of God’s creative process,” and in the social scene, this was

perceived as women’s one redeeming quality. “Women’s subjection was inherent in their very

being and was present from creation.”127 Though women were the moral leaders of society, their

natural weaknesses also gave way to their potential to be temptresses. The major religions were

very strict in their attitudes against women’s sexuality, condemning them even further as

unworthy and incapable of entering the public and political sphere.

III. Test Case - The National Convention

These prejudices against women were bred in Enlightenment society and in turn, created

a new kind of society. The National Convention was the most radical phase of the revolution

because of the extreme progressive reform that took place during its duration. Thus, it is the

perfect case study for proving why gendered inequality, based on the reasoning that women were inhuman, was the premiere obstacle of human rights during the revolution.

The National Convention, the new legislative body of French government, began in

September of 1792 and lasted until October 1795. It was the first group in the new Republic of

France to hold lawmaking power. Many powerful men were leaders of the Convention, most of

125 Ibid., 11. 126 Bellhouse, “Bourgeois Justice, Gendered Virtue, and the Criminalized Other in France,” 979. 127 Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 20.

39 them belonging to the Jacobin political club.128 The Jacobins were supporters of the republic, thus called ‘”republicans”, and in general favored revolutionary opinions. However, there was a bitter divide in the group; two separate and competitive factions called the Girondists and the

Mountain. This divide within the National Convention, and what occurred in the formative years of the new republic because of it, contributed to making the Convention arguably the most radical phase of the French Revolution. The Convention was popularly elected (by male voters,

of course) and was first charged with drafting a new constitution for France. Where they first

deviated from the earlier liberal phase of the revolution (1789-1792) was in their decision to convict and execute Louis XVI. Prior to the Convention, revolutionaries wanted to coexist with the monarchy. The Convention moved past that to total democracy and annihilation of all symbols and structures of past oppression. In March 1793, the divide between the two factions grew stronger and more radical, following growing demands for increased political action from the laboring poor of Paris.129 In an attempt to stabilize their regime, the Convention formed the

Committee of Public Safety, which was given dictatorial power to deal with the national

emergency. Their rule grew into the Reign of Terror, a period of supreme violence, totalitarian

rule, and mass executions fueled by the conflict between the Girondists and the Jacobins. The

Committee was spearheaded by one of the authoritative politicians of the revolution, Maximilien

Robespierre, and catapulted the new republic into a time of extreme revisionism.

The Convention was considered to mark the most radical phase of the revolution not only

for the extreme physical violence that occurred, but because it was the time when everything in

society and politics was changing. Everyone was going against tradition, destroying the

monarchy, creating a platform for “human rights”, and creating an entirely new kind of life as a

128 McKay, Hill, and Buckler, Understanding Western Society, 598 129 Ibid., 599.

40 nation. It was clear that the revolutionaries were not afraid of change. In the face of such

progress, one must ask why it was impossible for the majority of these men to consider any

change in the status of women. What could have held them back? They resisted no other

progress, so why did the prejudice against women weigh so heavily on their opinions? It could

only have been because of the nature of the prejudice -- because women were not considered

human, it was not even a question of equality. Although some men and women thought felt

differently, they were competing with the majority opinion and lost. Gender rules were not open

to change. Women were not citizens, though they tried consistently throughout the course of the

revolution to earn the rights that would give them equality and, by definition of universal

equality, citizenship.130 There were two forms of citizenship - political and social, united by the

idea that man had the natural right to them. “A convincing feminist conception of citizenship

necessarily involves a radical redefinition of the public/private distinction to accommodate the

recognition of citizenship in the private realm.”131 Women were not even asking for every right

that men had -- they were asking that they be recognized first as individuals who deserved such

rights, but even this was impossible for the leaders of the Convention to consider.

Though the opposition to women’s attempt at equality was extremely strong within the

new government and throughout society, there were several individuals who protested the

unfairness of the general attitudes. These men held their debates in forums of the National

Convention and were often notable men involved in the new government. One of the most prominent male political scientists and philosopher of the time, the Marquis de Condorcet, spoke up publically for women and gave important publicity to the women’s issues that the public was becoming increasingly aware of. He was a deputy and an elected Parisian representative to the

130 Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship,” 97; Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 5. 131 Ibid., 84.

41 Convention, in addition to later becoming its secretary. Condorcet wrote a public newspaper

article entitled, “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship,” in July of 1790. He

was a dedicated Enlightment thinker who heavily valued rationalism, and according to Lynn

Hunt (and contrary to Rousseau), he took the discourse on rights to its absolute limit.132 He

argued that if the National Assembly and the men of the French Revolution could claim that they

had universal rights (as specifically stated in the Declaration of the Rights of Man), then they

could not rationally or reasonably refuse these rights to any other adult. The Marquis blamed

habit for the behavior of men, stating that it was the fault of familiarity that caused men to allow

the violation of the natural rights of those who were deprived to continue.133 Tradition and

propriety dictated that men were always in the seats of power and that the only duties for women

were those in the home. Men were not used to women being in the public sphere, so either it did

not cross their minds or they resented the intrusion into their domain.

The men of the Third Estate and National Assembly who opposed women gaining these

rights argued that women were naturally emotional and therefore irrational. As reason was the

only differentiating factor between man and animal, and women did not possess reason, they

were seen as naturally unfit. But Condorcet argued that for denying women any of these rights

not to be an “act of tyranny,” it would have to be proven, undeniably, that women did not have

the same god-given, natural rights as men. “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.”134 He presented the main

reason used against women having rights and used the opposition’s own arguments against them.

132 Marquis de Condorcet, “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 119. 133 Ibid., 120. 134 Ibid.

42 To refute the idea that women were inhuman because they did not possess the ability to reason,

Condorcet blamed the lack of education that women were fighting to gain. If women had equal

opportunity for education, then they could and would do great things like so many other women

in history, like Madame du Châtelet.135 In addition to his argument for equality, Condorcet

added, “certainly no one would presume to limit the rights of citizenship exclusively to men of

genius,” therefore it was grossly unfair that any right to citizenship be based on mental capacity,

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 followed a course in public law.136

Condorcet argued that this was irrational because each individual is different -- is an individual -- and “why should women be excluded rather than those men who are inferior to a great number of women?”137 This argument from the Marquis de Condorcet was monumental. Not only did he

claim that women were equal to men, he stated that some of them were even more worthy of

such rights. All of the points made by the opposition were “unjust to advance as grounds for

continuing to refuse women the enjoyment of their natural rights those reasons that only have

some kind of reality because women do not enjoy these rights in the first place.”138

Unfortunately for the women of France, the public did not agree with the Marquis, and his campaign for universal human rights and equality separate from gender was unsuccessful.

The Baron de Montesquieu, previously mentioned in this thesis as an outspoken

Enlightenment philosophe, was also very involved in the politics of the times. He was not

originally committed to the women’s movement, but very quickly realized this was issue that

135 Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship,” 88. 136 Condorcet, “On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 120. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid., 121.

43 most political actors were making worse by ignoring. Montesquieu began to doubt the reasoning

behind women’s mandated inequality, postulating that an unstable government was a reflection

of relationships between men and women. At a time when there was so much political turmoil,

his theories were relevant to both the public (political) sphere and the private (the women’s

movement) sphere. In his Persian Letters, he wrote that he doubted the morality of men,

because “he believed that the brutalized sexual relationships of the seraglio [harem] in Asia were

the basis for their despotic governments. And what had Louis XIV done? He had insisted on

controlling the marriage plans of his nobles, which Montesquieu could interpret as one more sign

of portending despotism.”139 Though Louis was no longer in power, women certainly had

gained no rights since his abdication. Control of women’s decisions and sexuality, even in such

a silent, manipulative manner as gender definitions, was deplorable and indicative of a corrupt

society. The only people to blame for this were the leaders of the states and movements -- those

who created the problem or who had the power to change it and did not.140 Even more to blame

than Enlightenment philosophes were those who followed certain religious traditions.

Montesquieu wrote that the Bible “sanction[ed] the unjust subordination of women to men,” and

that “the source of these opinions…is neither God nor nature, but overwhelming male pride.”141

The Baron recognized that Rousseau and his supporters were fundamentally wrong because

nothing about woman’s “nature” deemed that she was less equal than man. Men simply wanted

the power. This “natural” inequality of women was an extension of the totalitarian regime of

Louis XIV, and an attempt to gain control by unfairly imposing submission and justifying it

139 Orest Ranum, “Personality and Politics in the Persian Letters,” Political Science Quarterly 84, 4 (December 1969): 624. 140 Ibid., 626. 141 Sanford Kessler, “Religion & Liberalism in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters,” Polity 15, 3 (1983): 383.

44 through God and nature.142 In the Persian Letters, Montesquieu wrote with a distinct “feminist orientation,” attempting to “free the female from her unjust subjection to men sanctioned, in his view, by Biblical religion.143 While suggesting that women as a rule are physically weaker than men, he teaches through Zulema [an imagined character] that the sexes are equal in a decisive respect, namely, their capacity for virtue.”144 The Baron spent much of his letters writing about sexual equality, a rarity in the 18th century, but a trait that made his work “an important philosophical source for the women’s liberation movement. Montesquieu believes that women are particularly capable of compassion…and he wants to enlarge the role of this emotion in world affairs. Indeed, it appears that Montesquieu admires feminine traits more than manly virtues.”145 The Baron de Montesquieu was one of the few men who ever voiced such an opinion during the revolution, and perhaps the only one who seemed to argue that women’s nature actually made them fit for politics. He saw problems in the transitioning governments and in the area of human rights that he realized would be solved by women’s total immersion into the public and political sphere. Their nature was not a weakness nor a fault, but something that uniquely prepared them to participate in politics and would be an advantage of France.

Another influential government official who stood up for the equal political rights of women was Deputy Pierre Guyomar, who also served on the Council of Five Hundred and the

Council of Elders. His 1793 speech during the National Convention, “The Partisan of Political

Equality Between Individuals,” focused heavily on the linguistic oppression of past documents.

Guyomar began by classifying the ideas and prejudices associated with the word “man” in its

Latin roots. The term homo was used in part for both men and women, therefore Guyomar

142 Ibid., 385. 143 Ibid., 390. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid., 391.

45 proposed usage of the term “individual” in all documents pertaining to laws and equality because

it was “more appropriate for indicating humans of each sex, of all ages, all members, in my

opinion, of the great family which inhabits the world.”146 Turning around the language of their

discussion was an attempt to open the minds of individuals to the idea of humankind and beg the

further question, “does the declaration of the rights of man apply to women?”147 Guyomar went

on to say that there were absolutely no differences between men and women in mental abilities

or character traits. These were the only things that mattered in judging one’s ability to

participate in politics, or any other aspect of the public sphere. The only natural differences between men and women were physical, but the deputy could not conceive of “how a sexual difference makes for one in the equality of rights… Let us liberate ourselves rather from the

prejudice of sex, just as we have freed ourselves from the prejudice against the color of

Negroes.”148 By relating the issue of women’s rights to the recent issue of slavery, Guyomar

made it clear how wrong people could be in their traditions and beliefs. It was also an attempt to

show the public that change was not something to indiscriminately fear -- it could be great. Was

their revolution not proof enough? “Custom and oppression only serve to prove that power has

been usurped… The law of the strongest maintains tyranny.”149 The powerful words that so

moved the masses would be completely empty if they became the foundation of such hypocrisy.

The French republic gave birth to equality. How could it hope to maintain its high moral facade

when it denied rights to half of its population? Crying, “Either strike the word, or bring reality in

line with it,” Guyomar promoted the merging of spheres and a truer definition of universal

146 Pierre Guyomar, “The Partisan of Political Equality Between Individuals,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 133. 147 Ibid. 148 Ibid. 149 Ibid.

46 equality .150 He argued for women to be allowed to vote, to be voted into positions, and to be freely and equally a part of the political system.

None of these illustrious men was successful in their endeavors to gain universal human rights in the new republic of France. Not only were women continuously denied any sort of political rights, but efforts were made in Paris to suppress any kind of unrest or even discussion among women on the subject. Several deputies in the National Convention suggested that all women’s social clubs be banned so that women would no longer have an environment in which to cultivate radical ideas against the accepted thinking of popular society. The proposition passed with few disagreements and little discussion. The society that prompted such conversation was the Society of Revolutionary Republic Women -- not because it was a feminist club, but because

“any organized women’s political activity is threatening and [the Convention] forbade it henceforth.”151 Fabre d’Eglantine, a member of the National Convention, spoke for the majority

of the group and for a large part of society when he said that female activism was a threat to

society. If they achieved what they sought, or were even able to meet to discuss their desires,

surely they would soon demand guns and rights to fight.152 It was d’Eglantine’s view that

observations of any of these societies clearly showed that they were not pacifistic groups of

mothers and sisters, but were instead wild, immoral revolutionaries. Allowing them to organize

would only bring corruption and discord to the new republic, which was the last thing it needed

as they struggled to maintain harmony within the Convention. The public was insulted by such

women -- to protect the sentiment of the revolution, such clubs had to be disbanded in Paris. The

decree stated, “The clubs and popular societies of women, under whatever denomination, are

150 Ibid. 151 Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 136. 152 Ibid.

47 prohibited.”153 Though women attempted to move forward by asking for the right to education

and discussing their political future and other issues with other women who shared their

struggles, they were opposed and chastised at every turn.

The National Convention is the best test case for understanding why women’s

individualism was so strongly opposed by the majority in Convention and the public because it

was the most radical phase of the revolution; yet with all of the protest and attention being drawn

to the issue of women’s equality, the men who had the power to make the change happen (those

in the Convention) fought back with all their might because they did not understand women as

human. It was never that they were unaware of the issue or that they did not hear multiple,

rational arguments on behalf of female autonomy. It was because the idea that women, by

nature, were not human with a sense of sovereignty and individualism was too deeply ingrained

in society to be changed even during the most radical phase of French history.154 Women’s attempts to be political would therefore be a danger to the republic. The Enlightenment had put

into words and deeds the gender roles that ruled French society, and this sentiment was so

powerful that even the most radical revolutionary thinkers of the time could not overcome it.

Maximilien Robespierre was the most influential new government official in France. He

became the head of the French state under the new constitution and during the Reign of Terror,

and his politics became the ones that mattered in society. Although much had changed during

the course of the revolution, during the Convention, Robespierre’s thoughts on women and

equality did not stray from the old beliefs. He supported universal suffrage (universal for men)

and believed that they were free from all “prescriptive rights and privileges: people were not free

153 “Discussion of Women’s Political Clubs and Their Suppression,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 135. 154 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 3.

48 because of historic customs or fundamental laws, but because they were human.”155 Here again was proof that no matter how radical or progressive any man in the movement was, the inherent prejudice against gender was based on their idea of humanity. It was Robespierre’s goal that

France would “defend the cause of humanity,” and he did have great enthusiasm for his

principles -- “his views on the natural rights of man logically brought him to recognize such

rights in all peoples.”156 By “all peoples”, Robespierre meant men of different nations, religions, and races, not women. Robespierre was very dedicated to this “natural” way of thinking, that men and women had completely different spheres in the world and that it should remain that way. Men should have universal rights, in France and all around the world, because it was their natural right alone.157 No matter how radical the National Convention was, it was not radical

enough to change what should have been the biggest human rights issue of the time.

The Convention was all about change -- total change from the previous traditions in society and in politics. Why then was it impossible for women to gain equality when there were such illustrious advocates for their rights? It is important to understand the arguments made in support of women’s equality during the National Convention so that it is absolutely clear how much more support the “enlightened” opposition had.

Perhaps prompted by the Marquis de Condorcet’s vocal support for women’s rights, a

single woman felt the calling to write her own pamphlet to expose the injustices of the new laws

of citizenship. Etta Palm d’Aelders was important to the discourse on gender and equality

because she was one of the first women to write on behalf of the cause on her own, not as a part

of an anonymous group. It could have been dangerous for her, as well as socially damaging, to

155 Michael Rapport, “Robespierre and the Universal Rights of Man, 1789-1794,” Oxford Journals 10, 3 (1996): 305. 156 Ibid., 311. 157 Ibid.

49 express herself in such a public arena, but she was a pioneer. Her speech, “Discourse on the

Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, at the Expense of Women,” was published on December

30, 1790, and given to the other members of her Social Circle political club. She was allowed

into this all-male society, which included the Marquis de Condorcet, and later fought in the

revolution. She was not a “natural woman” as the Enlightenment would define here, so her

acceptance from this society shows some of moves towards greater feelings of equality, with the

group supporting d’Aelders, Condorcet, and their ideals. She questioned the system so clearly

based on rules of gender spheres and which created laws favoring men at the expense of

women.158 D’Aelders was also one of the first to suggest that the democracy, as it was, was

harmful to women, not merely exclusive. “Those prejudices have changed what was for us the

sweetest and the most saintly of duties, those of wife and mother, into a painful and terrible

slavery.”159 It was argued that women should not be confined to these roles and given no other

options. Of course women were mothers and wives, and at this point it was clear that these roles

were still very important to them. But what d’Aelders claimed women wanted was the

opportunity to be equal partners with men and to have the chance to be a voice in government

that could affect the lives of women throughout the country. More than anything, this document

showed that some women did want to be included, wanted to be successful, and had desires apart

from their “womanly duties”. These things came just as naturally to them as they did to men.

Nothing about their “nature” elicited such animosity towards their potential.

Elected representative and political moderate Jean Denis Lanjuinais was one of the first

to address the question of women’s rights in the political setting. He must have been considered

a progressive for his time, to even entertain the idea that women should have equal political

158 Etta Palm D’Aelders, “Discourse on the Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, At the Expense of Women,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 122. 159 Ibid., 123.

50 rights. But despite his argument in favor of equal rights for women, he concluded his speech,

“Report of the Committee Charged with Analyzing Constitutional Projects,” by arguing that

women should not have political rights and that they would not gain anything good from them.160

Lanjuinais began by revisiting the idea and definition of citizenship. In general, the word

“citizen” described a “member of the polity, of civil society, of the nation,” but indicated only

those who could exercise political rights -- “to vote in the people’s assemblies, those who can

elect and be elected to public offices; in a word, the members of the sovereign.”161 A woman could therefore be a citizen without the political connotation. Because of the gendered nature of the French language, the word for citizen was masculine. Though we cannot assume that the

French were insisting only men could be active political citizens because the word for citizen was related to males, it does indicate that there was a definitive difference between men and women at the very core of their society -- the language. Women and men were inherently different, both mentally and physically. They lived in separate spheres. They had no “natural equality” and social life, as well as the language, reflected that. However, it was not just women who were excluded from the political sphere. Among others exempted from the rights of

citizenship were children, the insane, minors, and criminals.162 Certainly many of these groups

listed were unfit to have equal rights in politics, but to lump women in with those who were so

clearly undeserving cast women in a very negative light. Lanjuinais seemed to make an attempt

to bridge the gap between the public and private spheres by agreeing that the definition of

citizenship is “applied to all those who form the social body…finally, to all those who enjoy the

fullness of civil rights, whose person and goods are governed in all things by the general laws of

160 Jean Denis Lanjuinais, “Report of the Committee Charged with Analyzing Constitutional Projects,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 132. 161 Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 132. 162 Lanjuinais, “Report of the Committee Charged with Analyzing Constitutional Projects,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 132.

51 the country.”163 In the broadest, most democratically inclusive sense of the word, every French

person -- women included -- was entitled to participate in their government.

However, it is obvious that even with changes in women’s rights and equality, the most

important sentiment coming from the government was a ‘violent diatribe against women’s

activism.”164 Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, a famous Jacobin orator and spokesperson, described

the female movement as “shocking” and “contrary to all the laws of nature for a woman,” as if to

make herself a man.165 It was an abomination to renounce one’s sex, and Chaumette made sure

that this was clear to the public by lumping other badly behaved women in with such an awful

statement, including Olympe de Gouges. Of course women were not attempting to become men

or entirely move into their sphere -- they only wanted more equality, and they were willing to

fight for it.

Just as the second phase of the revolution was beginning, laws were reflecting the

changes in society. Women were pushing for more equality and for greater acceptance to the

public and civil sphere. Demands for education and personal rights were the most common,

though they did move on to politics. It was, of course, progressive to even discuss the “woman

question” in formal settings, but fortunately a much more substantial and tangible form of

progress was made in November of 1791. The National Assembly proclaimed the right to civil

marriage for all, creating for the first time a type of social contract between husbands and

wives.166 Civil marriage made the private life more private, giving individuals more control over

their lives with the choice to marry through the government rather than only through the church.

Soon after, the National Assembly granted all people of France (females included) the right to

163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 “Women and the Code Napoleon,” The Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon- series.org/research/society/c_women.html (Accessed February 13, 2013).

52 divorce. This new law was one of the most important in the history of the women’s movement

in France because it was the first that gave women any sort of power over their own lives.167

Essentially, they had the right to leave their husbands and to keep their property if they did so.

They had the right to be independent in society. They could have their own successful lives as

individuals, and this right was guaranteed to them by the new government. While this by no

means indicated a societal switch to feminism, it did increase expectations for equality by leaps and bounds. If they could have this, why could they not have more? These changing laws showed the slight but crucial change from a focus on gender to a focus on equality. By creating laws that were not entirely gender-specific, the French Republic moved closer to a full democracy. However, the backlash against this pro-equality debate was strong enough to ensure that women were not given the rights they demanded. The idea that women’s natural traits prevented them from being human was the dominant belief of the entire French Revolution and it was the one thing that did not change.

Throughout the rest of the 1790s, discussion about women’s rights came to a standstill.

As seen through the documentation, there were a few strong advocates for total equality and even fewer who were willing to listen. Though the issue was raised time and time again, it was obvious that gender was the most important variable in any discussion held in public forums about equality. Not only was gender equality an idea rejected by the majority of the public, and by those in power, but it was threatening. Men felt that a woman’s only place was in the home, and even in these newfound rights of divorce and civil marriage the women were still adhering to their domestic nature. It can only be considered a small victory, though progressive for the time, that women were allowed an opportunity to be independent within their sphere. It was thus a

167 Scott, “French Feminists and the Rights of ‘Man’,” 2; Brace, “Rousseau, Maternity, and the Politics of Emptiness,” 374.

53 mark of how much even this small change was resented when, in Napoleon’s empire, these rights

were annulled.

Conclusion

Olympe de Gouges called women to arms in her Declaration of the Rights of Women,

proclaiming, “Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe; recognize

your rights…The torch of truth has dispersed all clouds of folly and usurpation… Oh women!

Women, when will you cease to be blind? Whatever the barriers set up against you, it is in your

power to overcome them; you only have to want it.”168 The French Revolution was about

overcoming oppression and creating “universal” equality, an issue that the women of France

understood very well. Because of the completely ingrained ideology on the roles of women in

society, because the majority of the population of France could not see or allow women to enter

the public sphere as individuals and as citizens, women never received these rights throughout the revolution. Access to citizenship was a “highly gendered and ethically structured process,” clearly marked in history.169 The bias against women was the reason that any government

throughout the revolution refused to change laws for equality. It came from the Enlightenment

perspective that women were not human, and therefore could not be valid, politically active

citizens of France. No matter what logic was used to argue with the transitioning governments

of France, from the monarchy to the new republic, the majority opinion refused to change.

Enlightenment sympathizers were so offended and appalled that some thought that women had a

right to have rights because it was, in their minds, absolutely absurd and unreasonable. Mankind

168 De Gouges, “Declaration of Rights of Women,” in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 126. 169 Prokhovnik, “Public and Private Citizenship,” 85.

54 was so involved in the idea of women being their assigned, “natural” selves that they would not even consider an alternative. The problem was gender.

Gender is one of the recurrent references by which political power has been conceived, legitimated, and criticized. It refers to but also establishes the meaning of the male/female opposition. To vindicate political power, the references must seem sure and fixed, outside human construction, part of the natural or divine order [i.e. men and women’s God-given, unchangeable nature]. In that way, the binary opposition and the social process of gender relationships both become part of the meaning of power itself; to question or alter any aspect threatens the entire system.170

It is shocking that, although the National Convention was the progressive phase of the

French Revolution (as far as changes made), the one thing that did not change was the state of women’s equality and citizenship. To understand why, one must study the history of the

Enlightenment ideals and how they created a society that could at once declare freedom from all oppression and at the same time blatantly oppress half of its population. During the

Enlightenment, the two key sources of information were the Encyclopédie and the philosophes.

The Encyclopédie defined women as irrational and thusly inhuman. The philosophes, most importantly Rousseau, decreed that women were only meant for the private, domestic life. They defined what women should and should not do, who they could and could not be. The

Enlightenment controlled the way people thought and kept them imbedded in those ideologies throughout the revolution. Each example of a debate or a document used in this argument, from the revolution to the Convention suggests that this was unchanging, and that it stemmed from

Enlightenment ideology. Steinbrugge wrote, “Legend has it that in France the eighteenth century was the century of women…”171 Though women faced total oppression throughout the revolution and their righteous cause was largely neglected, they commanded their own personal

170 Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” 1073. 171 Steinbrugge, The Moral Sex, 3.

55 revolution for what should have been great human rights issue of the 18th century -- the women’s movement for equality.

56

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