Practices and representations of women in French Revolution (1789 - 1795)

• Grant number: 12/50520-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants - Publications - Books published in Brazil
• Start date: September 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Laura de Mello e Souza
• Grantee: Laura de Mello e Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The subject of this study is the controversy about the civil and political rights of women in the French Revolution, sparked by a vigorous female militancy between 1789 and 1795. Those women massively joined the revolutionary movement, organized in political clubs and exercised some exclusively male citizenship rights. Their political rights were denied, but for the first time, public officials had to publicly justify their decision. This study will focus on flow activists managed to participate so actively in national politics. We will analyses the actions and images of women in private and public spaces, especially republican mothers, militants and women soldiers. Political activists were rejected due to cultural and political reasons. The thirty-seven images in the iconography chapter helps us understand the behavior expected of decent people: civic motherhood r whose aim was to educate and nurture future patriots, represent the nation as lofty goddesses standing above conflict or women soldiers who sacrificed themselves to the nation. Militants regularly attended assembly galleries and participated in political debates. They gave rise to the myth of the bloodthirsty "knitters". They were tolerated while supporting the government. When they became political adversaries, they were repressed in the name of the essential moral principles of the republic. (AU)