The majority of men believed that women's participation in government was both unnecessary and redundant. Women were assumed to have the same interest and opinions as the men who represented them, and they were repeatedly assured that their husbands, sons, and fathers would always have their best interest at heart. Women were encouraged to support the Revolution by assuming the duties associated with being a good Frenchwomen, not by forming legions or social clubs that argued for equal rights. An aristocratic women's duty was to live simply and modestly, abjuring luxury, and wearing only French-made

Women were supported in their pleas for equality by strong female representatives, like Olympe de Gouges and Etta Palm d'Aelders, and influential Enlightenment thinkers such as the Marquis de Condorcet. With so many forces pushing women into the public arena and advocating for equal rights, what caused their defeat? The answer is simple: The French people were not yet enlightened. The majority of the population, whether or not they supported women's rights, saw women's place in the home as a mother and a wife. It was inconceivable that women, like a man, could take on duel roles, could both bare children and make political decisions or could provide for their own families and be conscious of the needs of the rest of the country. When women broke out of the traditional mold and used their newfound rights for purposes other than to converse with their mates and educate their children, they found themselves right where they'd started, pushed back into the home and the suffocating embrace of their husbands and fathers.

The Declaration of the Rights of Woman was Gouges's most important contribution to advancing woman's rights in the Revolution. Her ideas were born from the contradiction that existed between the fundamental nature of the Revolutions principals and the blatant exclusion of the female sex from their application. Article three is particularly potent declaration: "The principal of every sovereignty essentially resides in the nation, which is only the union of Woman and Man; no corps, no individual may exercise authority which does not expressly emanate from it," (3). The National Assembly or the King never accepted this document, but its mere existence and the support that it gathered help bring women's issues on to the table.

At this early stage of the Revolution it was apparent that the political intervention and involvement of women of the popular class had gone beyond previous experience. The very fact that the women turned to the National Guard and the National Assembly for assistance indicates their appreciation and understanding of the new political context, and their identification with the Revolution. Women, denied the formal rights of citizens, joined the struggle to create a new political culture founded on the ideas of equality and popular sovereignty. From the outset of the Revolution, women's aspirations for the refinement of grievances merged with the wider goal of establishing a new political and social order. Women were now capitalizing on the political tools that the Revolution was providing to make changes. The cahiers included requests from women of the laboring classes for royal protection against unfair competition from men who engaged in trades traditionally recognized as women's to issues of equal rights. Similar petitions were written in 1789, for example the Petition des Femmes du Thiers Etat au Roi, which asked the King to support their efforts to secure better education and training for women.

In the October days of 1789 the role of women was quite decisive. Anger with their passive role in constructing the cahiers, irritated with the municipal government, annoyed with the stalled constitutional revolution, and fed up with the shortage of food, all fuelled their discontentment. Early in the morning of October 5th 7,000 women rallied outside the Hotel de Ville and set off on the fourteen kilometer march to Versailles, armed with pikes, clubs, knives, swords, muskets, and a cannon (4). The women were determined to lower the bread prices and punish the royal officer who insulted their revolutionary cockade. Several hundred women invaded the National Assembly and left the deputies with a strong impression on how they felt about being the victims of a 'famine plot' and subsistence. They proceeded to take over the National Legislature, demanding a guaranteed supply of affordable bread, and passed mock legislation. A second prong of marchers threatened to open fire on royal troops, insulted

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)