The Neglected Equality in Times of the French Revolution

Abstract

This article analyzes the concepts of equality defended and transcribed in the discourses of the French Revolution of 1789, from a gender perspective. Starting from some authors such as Joan Scott or Lynn Hunt, among others, the vulnerability or limitations of the concept of equality, so defended by the revolutionaries, will be analyzed. What kind of equality did they defend? Who were left out? What paradoxes emerged from these discourses and even from the suffragette feminists themselves? Thinking in terms of paradox, ambiguity or contradiction is a challenge that we try to cross in this work. It is a descriptive look that what it seeks is to dialogue with some sources and with authors, to be able to think and reflect on the paradoxes of the French Revolution. Where the main injustice was to have left them out of the concept of citizens, after they participated actively, both physically and discursively in de Revolution. The equality of these women was neglected, despite the fact that their contemporaries denounced it through actions such as the draft in of the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the complaints notebooks.