This blog post examines why women and lower-class men couldn’t enjoy their rights despite the French Revolution’s call for equality.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, issued after the French Revolution, proclaimed that all humans are equal. This declaration became a crucial starting point for fundamentally transforming the social structure of the time. However, legal equality was granted only to men who possessed significant property. Society still maintained discrimination based on class and gender, and this discriminatory structure had long been taken for granted. Despite participating in the Revolution, women and lower-class men were denied legal equality. This starkly revealed the gap between the Revolution’s ideals and reality.
Consequently, in 1791, two years after the Revolution began, a Declaration of the Rights of Woman was published, spearheaded by Olympe de Gouges, demanding liberty, equality, and suffrage. Her courageous assertions were revolutionary for the time, and she was ultimately deemed a traitor and executed. However, her declaration laid a crucial foundation for discussions on women’s rights and inspired future women’s rights activists. In 1792, in England, Mary Wollstonecraft emerged as a strong advocate for women’s rights. In her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she defended women’s right to equal education and social opportunities. Her arguments were shocking in contemporary society but became the cornerstone of the subsequent movement advocating for women’s rights.
The demand for women’s equal rights persisted into the 19th century, but women did not gain legal citizenship, namely universal suffrage, until the early 20th century. After a period of stagnation, the women’s movement revitalized in the 1960s. This era saw vigorous efforts across society to legally guarantee women’s autonomy and equality, including improving gender roles, achieving equality in education and employment, and recognizing the value of domestic labor. Simultaneously, various social movements unfolded to enhance women’s rights, yielding significant achievements. Alongside this, female employment increased quantitatively, and women’s social status rose to some extent. Particularly as women no longer confined themselves to traditional domestic roles but actively participated in social activities, women’s voices gradually grew stronger.
Theories concerning women’s issues also diversified and became systematized. Beyond the liberal feminism that had led the early women’s movement, various other theories of women’s liberation emerged. Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, and radical feminism emerged as new perspectives. These theories criticized the existing male-centered social structure, analyzed the socialization of gender discrimination, and sought ways to overcome it. Issues concerning the socialization of gender discrimination were progressively discussed in sociology and psychology, revealing that differences in abilities between men and women are not innate but formed by social environment and education. Furthermore, anthropological research demonstrated that gender roles and personality formation in patriarchal societies can vary according to social and cultural characteristics. Consequently, the recognition that men are not inherently superior to women in social roles became widely accepted.
This shift in perception significantly influenced the women’s movement. The stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity, recognized as the result of the socialization of gender discrimination, have been widely acknowledged as contributing to the formation of flawed views of humanity. However, this alone has not significantly improved the structure of inequality between men and women. As long as gender roles within the household remain strictly divided—with husbands engaged in productive activities and wives solely responsible for housework—women, excluded from productive activities, inevitably become economically dependent on men. This inequality extends beyond mere economic issues, acting as a factor that limits women’s autonomy and self-realization across society.
Even when women enter the workforce, they face significantly more discriminatory treatment than men. While the number of women holding jobs is gradually increasing, female labor is often placed in highly unstable employment conditions, easily exploited or discarded according to the needs of capitalists. Wages for women are also generally lower than those for men. Nevertheless, under these conditions of unstable employment and low wages, the majority of low-income women cannot afford to stop working, as they cannot relinquish this cheap labor force for capital. Furthermore, even when participating in productive activities, they cannot escape the burden of domestic labor. They suffer mental and physical distress from the dual roles demanded of them at work and at home. Consequently, women’s social and economic status remains inferior to that of men.
Today, societal perceptions of women’s status are gradually improving. However, many challenges remain. Evaluations of women’s value and capabilities are still constrained by erroneous stereotypes, which act as barriers preventing women from fully exercising their abilities in social activities. Considering the proportion women occupy in society’s structure and roles, this is not just a women’s issue but a problem for our entire society. Therefore, rather than attempting to resolve these issues through changes in the perceptions of individual members of society, they should be addressed through institutional improvements, such as revising laws and regulations concerning substantive gender equality in employment and childcare. Concurrently, educational efforts to overcome prejudice against women must also be pursued. A society where women’s rights and roles are fully guaranteed is not only beneficial to women themselves but will also serve as an important stepping stone towards a better society.
