Friday, March 30, 2018

The Fault of Our Institutions

I am taking a French Revolution & Napoleonic Era history class at my university because I love the French Revolution (and I'm a stan of Marie Antoinette let's be real here), and while reading for homework one day, I came across a quote in one of my books that I feel is very fitting for all time periods, especially this one.


"Woman is born with as many capacities as man. If she has not demonstrated it until now, it is not the fault of Nature but of our former institutions." - Georges Couthon, wheelchair-bound Jacobin from the Committee of Public Safety.


I read this quote and instantly thought about the world that we are currently living in. What kind of world did they live in back in the 1790s that someone would say this about women? To me, it was a good one. Even in the French Revolution period, women were a high priority. They had control of some things and they were getting rights. That's more than can be said for America and our history with women's rights.

What I am getting from this quote is that, no matter what, women are equal. And that if we are not able to show ourselves, it's because of the barriers that society (mainly men) have put up in front of us, and we can only show ourselves when we are able to bring ourselves over that barrier.

To me it is crazy to think that during a time period way before ours, they were thinking of women as their own persons, and not just a thing, or a wife/mother figure. They were so powerful during the revolution that some of them were arrested for their efforts. A whole group of women stormed the Versailles palace demanding the price of bread be brought down and the royal family move back to Paris. Imagine something like that happening today...I just did and in my head it was lovely.

If they could point this barrier in the 1790s, then we can see it now, and it's only ignorance that you don't want to face it. I say we need to take a large hammer to those barriers and walls. Grab your hammers (fake ones please don't hurt someone else) and let's break down those walls! VIVE LES FEMMES!

What do you think of the quote? Do you think we could learn something from Couthon in today's age? Do you think that this quote is just far fetched and Couthon did know what he was talking about? Let's discuss it in the comments.

À bientôt!

Quote cred: Peter McPhee, Liberty or Death. (New Haven and London, 2016). Page 208
Photo/Gif creds: Couthon, sledgehammer,

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