French Revolution and women

In OTL women played a significant part in the events of 1789-93 and numbers died opposing abosolutism.

However France was actually rather behind hand in granting women rights. Napoleon's laws codified sexism.

Women did not get to vote in France until 1945.

Could the Rights of Woman have become a part of the revolutionary process?
 
Well anything happening between the fall of Bastille and the rise of Napoleon is pretty chaotic. I can see women's rights appearing in this period but not lasting. They'd be just another quirk.

You need the idea to be taken seriously by French liberals before the Revolution. That way, in spite of the fact that Napoleon will probably do away with it, it will have a measure of respectability that will give it better odds in the 19th century.
 
When her lover is sent to the guillotine for 'moderatism' the former actress Marie Constance Quesnet publicly denounces the Reign of Terror and is very nearly executed herself. She becomes a popular figure with those on the Left who have grown sick of Robespierre's bloodbath. She grows in power and has a role in the coup that ends the Reign of Terror. Despite many people asking that she be included in the Directory she is excluded. She becomes a good friend of Cambaceres who was also a moderate deemed too conservative for the Directory.

When Napoleon takes over the Second Consul takes the bold step of including Quesnet in the commission that drafted the Napoleonic Law.
 
I am again bumping my own thread.

If women had aquired in theory equal rights in revolutionary France would this advance or slow down women's rights in the 1800s?

Might a bigger role for women have had an effect of whether a radical France could survive?
 
Revolutionary France's survival depends on how ambitious it's leaders are, if Napolean had stopped in 1807 it would have survived. Essentially you need some more cautious leaders later on and some women in positions of power. I'm not too clued up on the French Revolution, I did buy Eric Hobspawm's The Age of Revolution, but I'm yet to read (looking forward to it though). Essentially the French Revolution is so complex, we need some real insight, but my recommendation is as above, more cautious leaders, more important women.
 
Top