Comparison Of Female Commoner And Marie Antionette Editorial

A Female Urban Woman/Commoner from France;

Written sometime after the Revolution

Women were just about the only traditionally oppressed group in the Revolution who didn't, at some time, make phenomenal strides towards freedom and equality. The sans-culottes, Protestants, Jews, blacks, even actors were at some time allowed to vote. Women were not allowed to vote. Let's just face it; life's not fair.

Nevertheless, from the start we urban women of Paris played a large role in the unfolding of the Revolution. Since we had mouths to feed at home, any fluctuation in bread price affected us very deeply. And we were ready to riot about that. It was a mob of fishwives, who brought the royal family to Paris on 6th October; having marched to Versailles the day before, demanding that "the Baker" bring bread to the starving Parisian population. We women were active in the galleries of the National Assembly, always ready to plead their hunger and demand action.

We women also fought to obtain some of the democratic blessings of the Revolution for ourselves. In response to "Rights of Man and Citizen", a prominent woman of letters and abolitionist Olympe de Gouges wrote "Rights of Woman and Citizen" in 1791. To us, this was a document that called for the same suffrage, property and civil rights to apply to us as to men. Simultaneously, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English radical mother, wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was a work so far ahead of its time in demanding suffrage and common-law marriages, among other things, that it foreshadowed the feminist movement of our century. Although these documents were to remain only ideals, we did make some small steps forward. In 1790, the Dutch baroness Etta d'Palme won the right for us women to file divorces. The Paris Commune declared spousal abuse a crime.

When war broke out, we patriotic women were eager to take up arms to fight for our country. The Amazons, a Parisian militia, begged the National Assembly that they could "fight with weapons other than a needle and spindle." And they were very true; but in late 1792, we women were officially banned from joining the army, though France was in desperate need of soldiers.

This did not stop Parisian women from taking an active and sometimes violent role in national affairs. Our salons were founded, the first being Etta d'Palme's "Friends of Truth club". Our revolutionary ideals were discussed and several other feministic concepts were born. The most radical of these clubs was the Revolutionary Republic Women (the RRW). These brave women focused not only on getting bread for us and our neighbors, but also in expanding literacy and obtaining female suffrage and right to bear arms. I believe that on our behalf, we peasant and laboring-class French women had always been politically active in times of crises Ð'- we were responsible for putting bread on the table, even during times of hardship.

Let me leave by saying this advice; the development of a better nation or even improved civilization sometimes relies on the strength, effort, and intelligence of an individual; and throughout our history, many have proven themselves worthy of this exhausting task. It only takes one dedicated soul to start a chain reaction in which change is brought about.

Marie Antoinette; Written Sometime after Revolution

They call Madame Deficit and the Austrian Whore; I interpret this as a fairytale princess, an arrogant foreigner who told a starving common people to "eat cake," a loving mother and wife, a cunning reactionary. I know this is true for I have aroused numerous and mixed responses during my life and in the two centuries since her death. During the Revolution I was made into the ideal "Bad Mother", a scheming "Austrienne" who controlled her husband and laughed at the suffering of the poor. In the royalist portraits, I was the "Good Mother," a beautiful but miserable victim of fortune, but a courageous and loving wife and