Society of Revolutionary Republican Women
After the beginning of the French Revolution, discussions around the role of women in French society grew, giving rise to a letter addressed to the King Louis XVI dated on January 1, 1789, and entitled "Pétition des femmes du Tiers-État au roi" (transl.
[2] Their movement was further solidified by the Women's March on Versailles on October 5, 1789 which demanded bread from King Louis XVI.
[2] In these early years, Dutch feminist Etta Palm d'Aelders published a pamphlet proposing that a group of women's clubs should be organized throughout the country to initiate a welfare program.
[4] In that pamphlet, she wrote, "Would it not be useful to form, in each Section of the capital, a patriotic society of citoyennes [women citizens] ... [who] would meet in each Section as frequently as they believed useful for the public good and following their own particular rules; each circle would have its own directorate...Thus, it would be in a position to supervise efficiently the enemies harbored in the midst of the capital and to differentiate the genuinely poor person in need of his brothers’ aid from brigands called out by enemies.
While a significant number of these clubs were dedicated to supporting men in the military, there were women who expressed the aspiration to participate alongside their male counterparts in more active roles.
[6] One woman went before the National Convention to say,[7] "Citizen legislators, you have given men a Constitution; now they enjoy all the rights of free beings, but women are very far from sharing these glories.
The coalition of these groups took a far-left position, supporting price controls and, what most deemed, ruthless punishments against those who disputed their views.
[2] Historian Dominique Godineau [fr] writes,[6] "Several citoyennes presented themselves to the secretariat of the municipality and declared their intention of assembling and forming a society which admits only women.
Several accounts report that the women of the Society would wear red caps of liberty to signify their alliance with the Revolution.
When the new Montagnard Constitution was adopted in late June, the Society praised it and the Convention, joining in celebratory festivities.
[10] During Marat's funeral, the Society women carried the bathtub he was murdered in and threw flowers on his body.
[6] The Society soon began to drift away from the Jacobins and toward the Enragés, a political group led by Jacques Roux, Jean Varlet and Théopile Leclerc, which supported strict economic control and harsh national security.
Pierre Roussel reported hearing at a meeting of the Society a proposal "to present to the Convention, a call for a decree obliging women to wear the national cockade.
On September 21, as per the Society's demands, the National Convention declared that all women must wear the tricolor cockade of the revolution.
The Society tried relentlessly to continue to petition the Convention, but most of the issues that they dealt with were deemed more trivial and less radical than their previous campaigns.
[6] The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women was officially dissolved, despite numerous protests by leading figures in the club.
Historian Olwen Hufton writes,[12] "The sans culotte, Chaumette said when he dissolved women's clubs in October 1793, [that he] had a right to expect from his wife [to attend to] the running of his home while he attended political meetings: hers was the care of the family: this was the full extent of her civic duties."
