Who Gets Forgotten in the Study of Resistance and Revolution?

Ironically, the study of revolution remains dominated by privileged academics that have historically overlooked many of its most important contributors. Although the turn of the 21^st century would have us believe that the struggle for female agency is complete, women continue to be marginalised in narratives of resistance. Women are characterised as passive victims of political upheaval, despite their central role in shaping liberation, not only for themselves but for their wider communities – an influence that remains critical even when conventional accounts fail to acknowledge it.

The French Revolution marked a period of profound socio-political transformation in France, one in which women played a significant yet often unnoticed part. From the outset, however, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, issued in August 1789 as a preamble to the new constitution, only recognised the liberty of male citizens. Despite this exclusion, women remained essential in advancing the revolution. In October 1789, Parisian women marched to Versailles, forcing the king to relocate to Paris. Later, in February 1793, the female-led grocery riots pressured the revolutionary government to introduce price controls and measures against food profiteering. Alongside street protest, the Revolution saw a rise in women’s political organisation. The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women sought to politically educate women so they could assert a presence within the republic's emerging political culture. Female literacy provided another avenue for resistance, as writer Olympe de Gouges demonstrated. In 1791, she wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, arguing that women should possess the same civil rights as men. Her writings stand among the earliest statements of feminist political thought. In this way, women played a crucial part in driving resistance while also laying foundations for expanded political rights.

Even when women’s resistance is acknowledged in historical narratives, many remain marginalised in other ways – most notably through race. Although women in the USA gained the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, this victory benefited only white women. African American women occupied a particularly precarious position, simultaneously belonging to two groups that had long faced systematic exclusion from political life. When the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was founded in 1909, women like Mary McLeod Bethune and Charlotte Hawkins Brown established themselves as civic leaders devoted to educating Black communities. Despite their activism, racism within the wider suffrage movement meant that Black women were marginalised from the very campaigns that claimed to fight for women’s political rights. White suffragettes like Alice Paul prioritised the enfranchisement of only white women, securing this by supporting Jim Crow. Yet Black women actively resisted, as demonstrated at the 1913 women's suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., where activist Ida B. Wells refused instructions to march separately from white participants, instead joining the Illinois delegation alongside Chicago's Alpha Suffrage Club. Voter suppression continued until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after which Black voter registration in Mississippi rose dramatically from around 8% in 1964 to 62% by 1968. For many, racial discrimination became the initial catalyst for political engagement, informing both their feminism and their resistance.

It is therefore impossible to divorce women from narratives of liberation. Far from simply being subjects of oppression, women have consistently acted as organisers, intellectuals, and revolutionaries across movements for socio-political change. Recognising these contributions is essential to understanding the true history of resistance.

Bibliography 

Loveday, L., Rivett, J. and Walters, R. (2021) ‘Understanding girls’ everyday acts of resistance: Evidence from a longitudinal study in nine countries’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 25(2), pp. 244–265. doi:10.1080/14616742.2021.1996258.

PRESTAGE, J.L. (1991) ‘In Quest of African American Political Woman’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 515(1), pp. 88–103. doi:10.1177/0002716291515001008.

Rose, R. B. (1995). Feminism, Women and the French Revolution. Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, 21(1), 187–205. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299020

The US Suffragette Movement tried to leave out black women. they showed up anyway (2020) The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/us-suffragette-movement-black-women-19th-amendment (Accessed: 16 March 2026).

Women and the revolution (no date) LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOUTION. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/women-and-the-revolution (Accessed: 16 March 2026).

Women in the French Revolution: Women’s Studies and feminism: Research starters: EBSCO research (no date) EBSCO. Available at: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/women-s-studies-and-feminism/women-french-revolution (Accessed: 16 March 2026).