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The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the Black March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were nearly rioting over the high price of bread.
Outram Dorinda, The Body and the French Revolution: Sex, Class and Political Culture (Yale UP, 1989) Proctor, Candice E. Women, Equality, and the French Revolution (Greenwood Press, 1990) online; Roessler, Shirley Elson. Out of the Shadows: Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789-95 (Peter Lang, 1998) online; Scott, Joan Wallach.
Though French culture during the time of the Revolution was largely misogynistic, leading women such as Madame Roland, Olympe de Gouges, and Charlotte Corday went against the traditional roles of gender and fought the mindset of a woman as passive, uneducated, and politically ignorant. According to author and historian Catherine R. Montfort, "a ...
After the beginning of the French Revolution, discussions around the role of women in French society grew, giving rise to a letter addressed to the King Louis XVI dated on January 1, 1789, and entitled "Pétition des femmes du Tiers-État au roi" (transl. "Petition of women of the Third Estate to the King") declaring the need for equality in educational opportunities between men and women.
The Women's Petition to the National Assembly was produced during the French Revolution and presented to the French National Assembly in November 1789 after The March on Versailles on 5 October 1789, proposing a decree by the National Assembly to give women equality. There were thousands of petitions presented to the National Assembly and this ...
In November 1789, at the very beginning of the French Revolution, the Women's Petition was addressed to the National Assembly but not discussed. Although various feminist movements emerged during the Revolution, most politicians followed Rousseau 's theories as outlined in Emile , which confined women to the roles of mother and spouse.
Women were especially prominent in food riots in French marketplaces (although men dominated those in the countryside). [24] [25] The most momentous French food riot was the Women's March on Versailles. This occurred in October 1789, when the market women of Paris began calling the men 'cowards' and declaring: 'We will take over!'
The French Revolution generated political excitement and sometimes violent unrest. Witnessing this unrest stirred Léon to action, and she became a radical for the revolutionary cause. [5] In 1789 at the beginning of the Revolution, she joined in the famous Storming of the Bastille, even carrying her own pike. [6]