2/21/25
● Types of Women’s Involvement in the Revolution
○ Women became schoolteachers
■ Took it upon themselves to educate the youth in France
○ Enslaved women who sought emancipation by marrying soldiers
■ Took places often in San Domingue
■ Enslaved women would marry soldiers to get their freedom but it also
worked out for the soldiers (more people on their side)
○ Cross dressing female soldiers
■ Women wanted to fight for the rights of the revolution
■ Would dress up as men to do so
○ Parisian market women
■ Enforced the revolution in France
■ Wouldn’t sell to you if you weren’t wearing the revolutionary cockade
■ Beat the shit out of the nun for wearing her habit in the marketplace
○ Former nuns who got married
■ Embraced the freedom offered by the revolution to get married
○ Women who took advantage of divorce
■ Got divorced if they had the opportunity
■ Got married by civil servants instead of priests
○ Daughters claiming rights to inheritances
■ Big change during the revolution saying that inheritances had to be split
between all siblings
■ Women who were nuns started to demand their inheritances, same with
men in monasteries
2/24/25
Marie Antoinette : Politics and Sexuality
● Execution justified in primarily sexual terms ; King Louis’s death doesn’t justify her own
; even though she was the one committing treason
● Pornographic songs and satire about her
● Accusing her of adultery and sapphism
○ Sapphism = lesbianism (close female sexual relationships)
● Pamphlets said she participated in orgies with the King’s brother and made it into her
trial in 1793
● Even accused of sexually abusing her own son the 11 year old dauphin
● Princess de Lanballe rumors
○ Was killed brutally because there was a rumor that her and Marie Antoinette were
sexually involved
● Conservatives will look at Marie Antoinette like she’s a saint ; Revolutionaries look at
her like the villian
○ Edmund Burke cartoon of him worshipping her
● Types of Women’s Involvement in the Revolution
○ Women became schoolteachers
■ Took it upon themselves to educate the youth in France
○ Enslaved women who sought emancipation by marrying soldiers
■ Took places often in San Domingue
■ Enslaved women would marry soldiers to get their freedom but it also
worked out for the soldiers (more people on their side)
○ Cross dressing female soldiers
■ Women wanted to fight for the rights of the revolution
■ Would dress up as men to do so
○ Parisian market women
■ Enforced the revolution in France
■ Wouldn’t sell to you if you weren’t wearing the revolutionary cockade
■ Beat the shit out of the nun for wearing her habit in the marketplace
○ Former nuns who got married
■ Embraced the freedom offered by the revolution to get married
○ Women who took advantage of divorce
■ Got divorced if they had the opportunity
■ Got married by civil servants instead of priests
○ Daughters claiming rights to inheritances
■ Big change during the revolution saying that inheritances had to be split
between all siblings
■ Women who were nuns started to demand their inheritances, same with
men in monasteries
2/24/25
Marie Antoinette : Politics and Sexuality
● Execution justified in primarily sexual terms ; King Louis’s death doesn’t justify her own
; even though she was the one committing treason
● Pornographic songs and satire about her
● Accusing her of adultery and sapphism
○ Sapphism = lesbianism (close female sexual relationships)
● Pamphlets said she participated in orgies with the King’s brother and made it into her
trial in 1793
● Even accused of sexually abusing her own son the 11 year old dauphin
● Princess de Lanballe rumors
○ Was killed brutally because there was a rumor that her and Marie Antoinette were
sexually involved
● Conservatives will look at Marie Antoinette like she’s a saint ; Revolutionaries look at
her like the villian
○ Edmund Burke cartoon of him worshipping her
