Broken Promises of the French Revolution, Social


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Broken Promises of the French Revolution

Broken Promises of the French Revolution Broken Promises of the French Revolution: Why French Women Did Not Get the Vote Until 1944 Thesis: Therefore, because of the discontinuity of French political history, the strength of the Patriarchal culture, and the inability of the French feminist movement to form a cohesive unit, French women could not obtain the right to vote until 1944. I. Exploration of French Culture: The Patriarchal Society II. Women and The French Revolution of 1789 III. Women Under the Napoleonic Code and 19th Century Romanticism IV. Class Separations: The State of Women in France During the Industrial Revolution V. The Twentieth Century: Women Caught in a Political Power Play Appendix A: Budget of a small hand in ready-made clothes industry Appendix B: Timeline of legislation concerning women in France Broken Promises of the French Revolution: Why French Women Did Not Get the Right to Vote Until 1944 To answer the question of why French women did not receive the right to vote until April 21, 1944, one only needs to look at the paradoxical nature of the French Revolution of 1789 for the answer. The Revolution that promised "liberté, égalité, et fraternité," for all delivered on its promise by giving to history the Reign of Terror 1793-1794, led by the Jacobins and characterized by hasty and tyrannical justice. Though the French had thrown off the shackles of the monarchy, it adopted the murderous treachery of the Jacobins and nearly crowned Napoleon king (Wolf 36). French history is plagued with this kind of paradox and incongruency, and it is in this political atmosphere that French feminism tried to grow. The legacy of the French Revolution seemed to include a fear of revolutionary violence that resulted in the government periodically repressing those who espoused new ideas (Moses 6). Feminism, being a revolutionary movement, was often subject to these repressions. From the Revolution to the end of World War Two, women would be subject to being the "second sex." Therefore, because of the discontinuity of French political history, the strength of the Patriarchal culture, and the inability of the French feminist movement to form a cohesive unit, French women could not obtain the right to vote until 1944. Before treading further into the history of French politics and its affects upon women, one must have a working definition for French feminism. What is feminism? Merriam-Webster defines feminism as, "The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes," (Merriam-Webster 277). Feminism as it pertains to France needs a more in-depth description. Feminist theory in France appeared as a revolutionary movement that would jam the theoretical machinery of republican discourse, exposing its limits and disrupting its smooth functioning (Duchen 7). The republic showed inherent flaws in its philosophy when it promised universal suffrage to all and delivered suffrage for all males, considering its wives, mothers, and daughters as non-citizens. French Feminists faced an uphill battle with the strong patriarchal institutions upheld in the government, as well as in the church and home. Therefore, French feminism was a radical political movement often fought against by the status quo that sought "the end of a political relationship of the sexes characterized by masculine dominance and female subordinance," (Moses 7). Exploration of French Culture: The Patriarchal Society The roots of the struggles French feminists faced when fighting to obtain true universal suffrage lie in the development of Western cultural ideals that they fought to change. French social patterns are a fusion of Greco-Latin, Judaic, and Germanic traditions in which patriarchal family life is a common factor (Moses 1). Women of these societies were denied all civic rights, education, and property. For example, one of the laws borrowed from the Roman system and incorporated into first French constitution was known as infirmus imbecillus sexus, women being considered as legal nonpersons (Moses 2). Supporting this structure was the backbone of the Catholic Church. Though the Catholic Church espoused the veneration of the Virgin Mary, her exultation by men was in its essence a form of chivalric idealization of women. Women were denied roles of leadership in the church and, if called, could only serve a spiritual calling by becoming a submissive nun. Though French politics were split Left and Right, they could agree upon one thing: the subjugation of women. Politicians on the Left were inspired by Rousseau who said, "The genuine mother of a family is no woman of the world; she is almost as much of a recluse as the nun in her convent," (Moses 12). Rousseau exerted profound influence on political thought during the Revolution. Though his philosophy proposed freedom guaranteed by the state, he was a misogynist who felt that a woman's "natural" state was in the family and the family alone (Academic American Encyclopedia 144). Louis de Bonald, a member of the Royalist Right echoed the importance of the subjugated woman as a vital factor of the health of the State: "The strength of the aristocratic state is dependent on the authority of the husband, the subordination of the wife, and the dependency of the children," (Moses 6). Both sides agreed that the role of woman was to reside within the family setting. Feminists were faced with a surprisingly united front when it came to battling the injustice of the patriarchal system. Women and The French Revolution of 1789 Feminist activism flourished in the time of the Revolution. Women of the 1789 revolution demonstrated for price ceilings on bread and flour, and demanded political rights for the first time (Duchen 1). In September 1791, Olympe de Gouges presented her Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne based upon the Declaration of the Rights of Man by Rousseau. A sense of collective power of women was emerging due to active participation in the Revolution. However, women understood themselves to be auxiliary supporters of the revolution - "knitting and sewing for the army," (Moses 12). Unfortunately for the emerging movement, the outbreak of war that the French began, out of fear of foreign invasion, on April 20, 1792, caused a return to conservatism in French society. In 1793, the Jacobins had a coup ousting the Girondins, becoming the government, "one and indivisible," (Wolf 122). The consolidation of Jacobin rule brought with it a tightening of the connection between law, order, masculine virtue and sexual difference (Scott 67). In 1793 the Constitution granted universal male suffrage, and the Société des Républicaines-Révolutionaires, one of the first groups of women formed to fight for female suffrage, protested. However, the emerging French feminist movement found itself on the opposing side of the government of the Terror. One outspoken crusader for women's rights, Théroigne de Méricourt was publicly whipped and suffered a mental breakdown. Olympe de Gouges was guillotined on November 1st because she was found guilty of treason. The Société des Républicaines-Révolutionaires was shut down in the same year it was formed. After the Reign of the Terror, the feminist movement was considerably weakened. After Madame de Staël published Delphine in 1802 and Corinne in 1809, no further political expression of feminism existed for nearly three decades (Moses 14). Women had seized the reigns of the Revolution, only to be thrown off the horse. In speaking out with an active voice, the status quo responded with the guillotine. Because of this, women would continue to hold a role of subjugation in nineteenth century France. Women Under the Napoleonic Code and 19th Century Romanticism With the aid of his brother Lucien, then a senator, Napoleon staged a coup d'etat, and on the ninth of November 1799, the day of the coup d'etat, the Napoleonic Era began (Wolf 144). The laws created under Napoleon, known as the Civil Code, excluded women from citizenship and borrowed many of its rules on women's rights from the royal, feudal, military, and ecclesiastical courts of the ancien régime (Moses 19). Article 213 of the Napoleonic Code states, "Le mari doit protection à sa femme, la femme obéissance à son mari (The husband owes protection to his wife and the wife obedience to her husband)," (Wolf 146). Simon de Beauvoir says of Napoleon in her work The Second Sex, "Like all military men, Napoleon preferred to see in woman only a mother," (4). French men revered the Napoleonic Code. It finally provided for them a stable form of government after so much revolution and war. John Wolf notes in his work France 1814-1919, "The Civil Code, which in 1807 became the Code Napoleon, gave France a logical, uniform, legal system," (6-7). Theodore Zeldin notes in his story of France that, "Thiers declared that the Civil Code was impossible to improve - at most he could suggest only a few stylistic changes," (Zeldin 199). Women were unable to make many advances during the Napoleonic era for the fact that they were discriminated against under the Napoleonic Code, and that they were viewed under the nineteenth century romantic view of women that revered them superficially and reduced them to childlike, subordinate women dependent on men for survival. After Napoleon's regime ended, France's paternalistic laws remained unchanged, leaving women unable to make much progress. Class Separations: The State of Women in France During the Industrial Revolution The working woman of 19th century France faced a life of terrible hardship. As the Industrial Age was dawning, more jobs were made available to women, but working-women survived on wages that were barely subsistence, and worked for nearly twelve to thirteen hours a day merely to survive (Moses 27). Many young girls left their families in the countryside and migrated alone to the cities, hoping to profit from higher paying jobs at the factories, and by 1866 nearly one and a half women worked in Industry and totaled approximately thirty percent of the workforce (Guilbert, 44). However, economic independence was unobtainable with the wages they were given. Women worked for considerably lower wages than men and thus caused more anger towards women from men due to the fact that men felt that jobs were being taken away from them by women (Guilbert 46). Because of frequent layoffs, working class women were forced to resort to prostitution and thievery in order to survive. French women became the concubines of the bourgeois French Industrialists. As Marx said, "Thus it is that woman's true equalities are warped to her disadvantage, and all the moral and delicate elements in her nature become the means for enslaving her and making her suffer," (Beauvoir 114). French laws were no help to working class women. For example, French law only recognized as criminal the rape of those fifteen years old or younger (Moses 84). In contrast, in 1810 abortion was outlawed with stiff penalties (Beauvoir 115). Women's rights were further marginalized in 1826 when divorce was abolished (111). Working-class women were most concerned about women's sexual vulnerability, and economic insecurity. Bourgeois women would have their own distinct concerns. Bourgeois women were more concerned with their civil and political rights, married women's property rights, and access to the professions than working-class women were. These women were forced to lead a life of limited education. Throughout her life they were segregated from the opposite sex, and owed obedience to her father and husband. Marriages were arranged. The whole purpose of the Bourgeois woman's life was to be married and raise children (Moses 31). Though these women were allowed access to education, their education included religion, reading, some history and geography, and the arts (Moses 32). It was generally felt that, "the way to be married was to be displayed," (Moses 33). In 1807 the first government funded school for girls was established. Yet, this school and the few others that would follow it offered higher level classes for women, but did not prepare them for the Baccalaureate. Unable to pass the baccalaureate, women were denied the ability to attend a University and study for a profession. The best profession available that educated women could receive was teaching positions. However, competition grew for the few positions available. Although an option, a teacher's income was hardly better than a domestic servant's, earning less than four hundred francs annually (Moses 44). With little opportunity to gain access to education and achieve economic independence, women were unable to make much progress during nineteenth century. Though jobs were finally available as a result of the Industrial Revolution, unfair wage practices did not allow for women to become economically independent. Education became available, but it did no more inform on how to become better wives. The patriarchal system gave neither the proletariat nor the bourgeois women room to breathe, let alone form an affective group of feminist activists. Yet, French women saw themselves as separate groups formed by class lines, not as women sharing a common condition. Under these circumstances, feminist movements were unable to gain enough momentum to stir up significant change. The Twentieth Century: Women Caught in a Political Power Play French women had trouble forming a cohesive unit with which they could fight the status quo. Unlike their English and American counterparts who fought the patriarchal system of their country through organizing a large, active group of women, French women decided instead to align themselves with political groups in order to bring about positive legislation for women and receive the right to vote (Duchen 10). Unfortunately, playing the game of politics did not always work to their favor. From 1880-1914 the presidency and control of the chamber and senate were in the hands of the republicans - the liberal left (Wolf 438). Under this government, many laws were passed to help relieve the lives of its female citizens, but it was usually passed as part of larger legislation meant to help all working class people. For example, in 1900 a law was passed limiting the workday to ten hours. In 1905 a day of rest once a week was made mandatory under the law. In 1909 it was mandated that women were to receive leave pay for childbirth (de Beauvoir 115). Although these were great strides for the civil rights of women, they were passed along with many bills that reformed workplace conditions. The tragedy of the early twentieth century feminist movements in France was that it was unable to develop a single consciousness of themselves as women. Confining their aspirations to institutional reform alone, they failed to address common sexual and social problems (McMillan 86). The movement was divided culturally and spiritually, with a different faction for every political possible political preference. Mainstream feminists tended to stay away from left-leaning politics, proletariat socialist women tended to veer radically away from their conservative counterparts, and even the Catholic Church proposed a "feminist" movement (McMillan 88). "Women lacked solidarity as a sex," said Simone de Beauvoir of the movement in the early twentieth century (123). Despite the lack of cohesion amongst feminist movements in France, a bill proposed to give women the right to vote was brought to congress in 1906 and received favorable report by some members of congress in 1909. However, the bill remained in limbo and with the break out of war in 1914 was again postponed (McMillan 94). French women contributed enormously to the French war effort, and the war effort contributed enormously to the advancement of women. For example, women made great advance in the service sector of the economy. In 1906 779,000 were employed in commercial jobs and by 1921 1,008,000 were employed in that sector (McMillan 120). Jobs of all kinds were starting to open up for women. With education finally being more available for women, women entered the workforce as chief accountants, managers, engineers, and secretaries (McMillan 135). However, most women in commerce were not married. The medical and law professions barred women from their practice. In France, out of 1,580,459 workers, the female component made up about 362,879 of the worker population - almost a quarter of the workforce (McMillan 132). However, women failed to actively join unions. In 1920 only 239,016 out of 1,580,967 working women unionized. Simon de Beauvoir attributed this to "a tradition of resignation and submission, a lack of solidarity and collective consciousness, that left them thus disarmed before the new opportunities that were opening up for them," (115). On the political front, a bill for female suffrage had passed through the Chamber of Deputies in 1919. In debate it was said that women should receive the right to vote as a "reward" for their war efforts (McMillan 144). At the same time Republican senators were debating whether women would receive the right to vote, Pope Benedict XV declared that he was in favor of female suffrage. Anti-clerical Republicans and radicals alike feared giving women the right to though the law separating church and state had been enacted in 1905 and these fears had little true reason for existence (de Beauvoir 123). Senators ignored the bill until 1922 when they threw it out. In 1928 senators passed a resolution to have no further discussion on the subject of female suffrage (McMillan 179). In 1919, the same year that the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill of female suffrage, the newly created Ministry of Health gave official recognition to pro-natalist organizations (Prost 39). On July 31, 1920 a law was passed that prescribed one to six months imprisonment or a fine of 100-500 francs if one was found using birth control or passing out literature on birth control (McMillan 189). The culmination of this pro-natalist policy was to be the introduction of the Family Code on the eve of the WWII. By the decreed law of July 29, 1939 the state offered financial inducements to women who fulfilled their maternal role, further negating women to their place in the kitchen and cradle. In 1930, Louis Weiss, a prominent French journalist, was the last woman to launch a woman's suffrage campaign. She met her efforts with the same apathy and ignorance as earlier campaigns for female suffrage. She notes one experience where, "in 1934 the peasants remained open-mouthed when I spoke to them about the vote, the workers laughed, women in commerce shrugged their shoulders and bourgeois women repulsed me in horror," (McMillan 180). Her attempts to gain female suffrage came at a time in history where turmoil prevailed in the government as the Popular Front took to the streets to demand more socialistic reforms to the government. Worldwide, countries were experiencing economic depression. She took to the streets in protest with those of the Popular Front in order to demand her reforms. She and a group of women chained themselves to the statue at the Place de la Bastille and set up ballot boxes to collect "votes" for women candidates (Scott 165). Louis Weiss was unable to gain enough momentum for her movement before the outbreak of WWII where all public efforts would be turned to the fight against Hitler and the Resistance movement. On April 22, 1944 General Charles de Gaulle announced that women would receive the right to vote in the government that was to be organized after the war. Senators who had fought against female suffrage were mostly found to be collaborators of the Vichy regime, and their voices were stilled. Woman's suffrage was formally written into the Fourth Republic's constitution adopted in 1946. The preamble stated, "the law guarantees to women equal rights with men in all spheres," (Scott 161). What was the reason behind de Gaulle's granting the vote to women? There are several possible reasons. First of all, WWII was a war fought to defend democracy. France needed true universal suffrage in order to legitimize its stance in the world as a true democracy. Other explanations suggest that de Gaulle wanted the votes of conservative-leaning women in order to counter the powers of communism mounting in France. Most importantly, declaring true universal suffrage separated the Fourth Republic from the old regime and Vichy government. "Citizenship for women was one of the ways of signaling the end of an outdated republic and the advent of a more modern one," (Scott 162). Granting women the right to vote gave the Fourth Republic the ability to align itself with other Western democracies and establish its legitimacy in France and the world From the Revolution and onward, the male-dominated French government gave little respect to the feminist movement in France and did all it could to surpress it as a revolutionary movement. Women also followed suit by never forming a substantive collective organization being separated along political and class lines. Being a weak movement, it was easy for the patriarchal society of France to keep women in their role as the submissive "second sex." When the question of female suffrage finally passed the Chamber of Deputies in 1919, the Third Republic procrastinated and, eventually, voted it down due to unnecessary political fears of the Catholic Church. Therefore, because of the discontinuity of French political history, the strength of the patriarchal culture, and the inability of the French feminist movement to form a cohesive unit, French women could not obtain the right to vote until 1944. Budget of a small hand in ready-made clothes earning 1 Fr .25/day with an annual income of 375 Francs (McMillan 63) 2 pairs of stockings 1.30 Lighting (for 1 year) 4 - 252.65 left for food and other expenses Timeline of Legislation Concerning Women 1801 Napoleon signs an agreement with the Pope making marriage a civil institution 1807 The first government funded school for girls established 1810 Abortion outlawed with stiff penalties 1881 Single women able to have bank accounts 1900 Law passed limiting the workday to ten hours. 1905 A day of rest once a week made mandatory under the law. 1909 Women receive leave pay for childbirth 1907 Married women allowed to keep control of their salaries 1919 Question of female suffrage passed the Chamber of Deputies 1920 Abortion and contraception prohibited 1932 Debut of the pro-natalist policy 1938 Women no longer have to obey the wills of their husbands 1939 State offers financial inducements to women who fulfill their maternal role Bibliography: Works Cited Academic American Encyclopedia. Danbury: Grolier Incorporated: 1998. De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Random House: 1952. Duchen, Claire. Feminism in France From May '68 to Mitterand. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1986. Guilbert, Madeleine. Les Femmes et l'Oragnisation syndicale avant 1914. Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique: 1966. McMillan, James F. Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society 1870-1940. New York: St. Martin's Press: 1981. Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary. New York: Random House: 1992. Moses, Claire Goldberg. French Feminism in the 19th Century. Albany: State University of New York Press: 1984. Scott, Joan Wallach. Only Paradoxes to Offer French Feminists and the Rights of Man. Cambridge: Harvard Universoty Press: 1996. Wolf, John B. France 1814-1919 The Rise of a Liberal Democratic Society. New York: Harper and Row: 1963. Zeldin, Theodore. Conflicts in French Morality. London: George Allen and Unwim: 1970.

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