How Did Mary Wollstonecraft Influence The French Revolution

In the late 18th century, France experienced a time of change that would later be known as the French Revolution. Initially, the people of France challenged the Old Order of ruling due to a growing financial burden from past war ventures in the Atlantic. Government officials, primarily from the commoners, reacted with a call for governmental changes regarding power. As Enlightenment ideas of equality and natural rights thrived, people began to recognize the dire need for social changes involving an individual's rights as well. Influence from the American Revolution and turmoil at home guided France to establish a new constitutional monarchy that gave people new rights involving the influence and voice they had in French society. For the first

time, individual people were able to express ideas of reform. Woman especially during this time period had a huge impact on the ideas of the French Revolution. Although certain woman such as Marie Antoinette and Charlotte Corday during the French Revolution were primarily seen as corrupting forces, woman such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges helped to influence positive change for women's rights through voice. Therefore, while these women were all involved in the French Revolution, each had a different lasting impact on the way of life that came from this period of change.

The first way women participated and influenced the French revolution was through positive advocating for individual rights.

Mary Wollstonecraft in the early stages of the Revolution was one of the first to help defend the movement through her writings. This is shown in The Vindication of Rights of Man where Wollstonecraft defends the ideas of liberalism and the natural rights of the individual. The article helped to support the ideas of the French revolution because it validated one of the main ideas of the movement: the natural rights of Men. This helps to show how Women were involved in the French revolution because it helps to support what the common people were fighting for. It helped to defend the idea of equal rights and liberalism, which were being questioned at this time. Similarly, Mary Wollstonecraft had a major impact through her writings on Women's rights as well. After achieving the goal of equal rights for Men, Mary wrote A Vindication of Rights of Woman. This article focuses on the idea of natural rights extending to Woman, defending the idea that woman should have similar rights to men. This was as important as her first work because it extended the ideas of liberalism to include feminism. Liberal Feminism helped to greatly influence Women's rights and even helped to get woman in politics. This explains Mary Wollstonecraft’s impact on the FR because through her writing she was able to open new doors for Women regarding their rights and voice in politics.

Another prominent Woman figure that influenced the French Revolution positively was Olympe de Gouges, a French political activist and playwright. De Gouges was one of the first to promote feminism which was expressed in her writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman. In article One of her writing, De Gouges states, ”Women is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on common utility.” This shows that she was involved in the French Revolution because she is contributing to the agreed social change of the time. Men during the revolution earned their rights and she is taking it one step further by asking for a similar social change for woman in France. Her advocation of this movement helped to voice a needed change for women during the revolution, which shows her impact on the rights of all female citizens in France during this time period. Olympe de Gouges also had a great influence on the idea of marriage during the Revolution as well. In her second writing, Social contract, de Gouges expresses the idea that men and women are equal in marriage and also proposes the idea of child support from both parents. This is very important as in the previous generations people believed that the male was the head of the marriage and that women were the property of the husband. People also believed that the father had no obligation to pay child support. The writings of de Gouge express how woman were involved in the French Revolution because they are focused on the equality that women deserve. It argues that both people should be equal in all perspectives and that even in property men and women have equal ownership. This coincides with ideas of the time about equality, it only takes it one step further to include all sex’s.

The second way women influenced the French Revolution was through negative representation of themselves, either as scapegoats or as corrupting influences.

Early in the French Revolution as inner turmoil and debt grew, people looked for somebody to blame for the hardships. Since the monarchy still held power and luxury in France, the people looked to the wife of King Louis XVI, Mary Antoinette, to blame for the condition of France. The first incident that occurred to Marie was The Necklace Scandal. While Marie Antoinette had no involvement, a third party representative claimed to be friends with the Queen and was to buy a very expensive necklace on her behalf. This led to the people associating her with ideas that she was oblivious and that during the hardships she was still living life extravagantly. This explains how women were involved in the french revolution because it shows how they were expressed as scapegoats. Marie Antoinette had no affiliation with this scandal and yet she is blamed and seen as oblivious to what is going on. While the French Revolution was a time of moving forward, people still held on to earlier beliefs of women as corrupt influences, which is why it was easy to blame the queen. Marie Antoinette was also similarly blamed for the problems of France’s government. To the general population of France, Marie was known as “Madam Deficit” and “L’ Autrichienne”. She was directly blamed for the problems of debt and instability in France, which led to

the March on Versailles, a direct target of Marie herself. This also shows how women influenced the French Revolution because it gave somebody to blame. It was easy to fall back on the idea that they were corrupting individuals. This made them easy scapegoats like with Marie Antoinette. She became a symbol of what was wrong with France, which helped to propel the revolution away from the Monarchy. Another Woman who was viewed poorly in the eyes of the citizens of France was Charlotte Corday, a symbol against the French revolution. She became this symbol due to her murdering of Jean-Paul Marat, who was seen at the time as a hero of the Revolution. People in France were appalled that a woman did this and during her death trial searched for a man’s influenced. They did not believe Corday could have done such a powerful thing by herself. This was an important negative influence on the French Revolution as it caused people to view women differently. This solidified their belief of women being corrupting influences. France now believed in the evil of women even more, which did not help with their participation in the matters of society.

Women had both positive and negative influences on the social, economic, and political changes that occurred during the French Revolution. While there was positive progress made with women’s participation in the advocation of the idea of equality in society, women were still seen as corrupting influences and blamed for the hardships that had occurred for France. Similarly, in the 1920s the Women’s Suffrage Movement advocated for the right to vote and run for political office in America. Both of these movements were brought on by how society was created. In the U.S. constitution it states “All Men are created Equal” and in France during the revolution people came up with only The Declaration of the Rights of Man. In both cases women advocated and made steps toward a more equal society in politics and social treatment, but they were still met by opposition. Also people in earlier times felt that the two genders were unequal and could be a corrupting influence which is why in both the American and French forms for rights, there is no mention of Women. This type of thinking was a major obstacle for women in both societies to overcome.