Women and political insurgency

Recent studies of French women as revolutionary rebels have focused on the Revolutions of 1789 and 1871. This book provides a wide-ranging survey of female insurgency in France from 1789 to 1871, with a particular focus on Paris and the period between 1830 and 1851. Drawing on unused archival material and primary printed sources the author demonstrates that women remained active in public disturbances although their presence in traditional subsistence riots declined.

Though they were most involved in conflicts where economic issues predominated, their protest came to be accompanied by politicization and its symbols. The links between contemporary feminism and insurgency are explored, as well as the development of a masculine critique of both praise and vilification.

The conclusions challenge the view that in the nineteenth century women retreated from popular movements, suggesting that, debarred as they were from exercising national sovereignty, they evolved their own means of public expression.