Women-led uprisings are mass protests that are initiated by women as an act of resistance or rebellion in defiance of an established government. A protest is a statement or action taken part to express disapproval of or object an authority, most commonly led in order to influence public opinion or government policy. They range from village food riots against imposed taxes to protests that initiated the Russian Revolution.
Some women-led mass protests deliberately set out to emphasise the gender (or gender role) of the organisers and participants: for example, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo emphasised their common role as mothers by marching in white headscarves to symbolise the diapers of their lost children. In other settings, women may strip naked in order to draw attention to their cause, or to shame or intimidate those whom they are protesting.
Early history The creation of the first human societies Studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers show that their strong sense of moral community is maintained by autonomous individuals who constantly resist any form of personal domination. In fact, many hunter-gatherers are so egalitarian and communistic that even a non-Marxist anthropologist like Christopher Boehm argues that hunter-gatherer societies – the first human societies – must have originated in uprisings against dominant males.Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest; the Evolution of Egalitarian Behaviour, pp. 1–10, 84–89, 172–73, 193–96, 249, 256.
Chris Knight, and other anthropologists influenced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, have theorised that these uprisings were led by women looking for collective support to ease their childcare burdens.Chris Knight, 'Sex and the Human Revolution' and 'Solidarity and Sex' Chris Knight, Camilla Power, Ian Watts, 'The Human Symbolic Revolution', The Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Vol. 5, pp. 75ff They have used a wide range of evidence from anthropology, primatology, mythic narratives, evolutionary biology and archaeology. Some Marxists have dismissed these ideas.Chris Harman, International Socialism, No. 54, pp. 1691–1774 . Some other Marxists have been more positive, e.g. Jack Conrad, 'Origins of Religion and the Human Revolution' . However, although the idea of women-led uprisings creating the first societies is controversial, a number of highly respected anthropologists have taken the thesis seriously. (Mary Douglas, Robin Dunbar, David Lewis-Williams, Caroline Humphrey, Marilyn Strathern, Clive Gamble, Keith Hart and Chris Stringer have all made favourable comments about Knight's work.Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species Origin of Our Species])
Trung Sisters The Trưng Sisters led the first independence movement in ancient Vietnam. Often depicted riding on elephant back, they mounted a rebellion in 40 AD and successfully defeated the Han-dynasty overlords. They then ruled over the nation, but the seasoned troops of Ma Yuan soon crushed the brief period of autonomy, and both sisters committed suicide by jumping into a river. They are widely respected as icons of women's rights and determination in modern Vietnam.
Boudica Boudica was a queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She died shortly after its failure and was said to have poisoned herself. She is considered a British folk hero.
17th and 18th centuries
Food riots
E. P. Thompson's classic article "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the 18th Century" emphasised women's role in many food riots. He argued that the rioters insisted on the idea of a moral community that was obliged to feed them and their families. As one contemporary commentator wrote: "Women are more disposed to be mutinous ... [and] in all public tumults they are foremost in violence and ferocity."
John Bohstedt later argued that Thompson had exaggerated women's role in food riots. Thompson responded by forcefully rejecting Bohstedt's criticism. While it is not possible to know the exact level of women's involvement in 18th century food riots, it appears that, at the very least, women led or initiated a significant minority of such riots and they participated in many more. Women participated more fully in food riots than they had in earlier anti-impressment riots of 1747, in which they defended community interest and enforced community morality. These riots of revolution and resistance opened up opportunities for women to take political action as social and economic influencers, and not just as a republican's wife or a mother. Thompson indicates that women's new assertiveness had something to do with the weakening of the patriarchal control of women as feudalism declined and market relations expanded.
Men and women participated in food riots in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (where contemporary reports claimed that women initiated many riots). Dutch tax riots in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were more numerous and often more violent, with participants of both lower and lower-middle classes, whereas food riots drew only lower-class participants. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at least 26 riots and 50 demonstrations involved women, with 10 being chiefly under their control. Women did the cooking and purchased foodstuffs for their families; therefore, they were the first parties to be confronted with scarcities of food and high prices. In doing so, women generally controlled much of the household finances. Another reason for their participation is due to the fact that food riots typically started in market places near shops and mills, which is where women gathered the most.
One of the most prominent tax riots in 1616 has even gone on record as "the Women's Revolt of Delft". Women also conducted nearly a third of food riots during the American RevolutionWilliam Sheehan, Riotous Assemblies, p160H.Applewhite and D.Levy, Women and Politics in the Age of Democratic Revolution, 127–30Manfred Gailus in K.Hagemann, Civil Society and Gender, pp. 174–179Barbara Clark Smith, 'Food Rioters and the American Revolution' , William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 3–5, 26–29. despite the fact that they were excluded from the vote, unqualified to serve as jurors at courts and law, and were essentially politically disabled by their dependent status. It made a difference that Americans knew that women figured prominently in food riots in England and Europe, and it made a difference that ideas of equity, neighborly dealing, and charity informed American women's daily lives in the colonial period. Roughly 100 women marched a "Female Riot" and took to the streets in July 1777 insisting on their right to enforce equitable exchange.
Long 19th century French Revolution
Women were especially prominent in food riots in French marketplaces (although men dominated those in the countryside).Cynthia Bouton, 'Gendered Behavior in Subsistence Riots', Journal of Social History, Vol. 23, No. 4C. Bouton, The Flour War: Gender, Class and Community in Late Ancien Régime French Society. The most momentous French food riot was the Women's March on Versailles. This occurred in October 1789, when the market women of Paris began calling the men 'cowards' and declaring: 'We will take over!' The women proceeded to march to Versailles with soldiers following them. The crowd then forced the King to return to Paris where, three years later, women were again major participants in the demonstrations that led to the abolition of the monarchy. A police inspector said in 1793: "It is mainly the women who are stirred up, women who in turn communicate all their frenzy to the men, heating them up with their seditious propositions and stimulating the most violent effervescence."D. Garrioch, 'Everyday Lives of Parisian Women in the October Days, 1789' , Social History, Vol. 24, pp. 231–32H.Applewhite and D.Levy, Women and Politics in the Age of Democratic Revolution, pp. 76, 81ffH.Applewhite and D.Levy, 'Women and Political Revolution in Paris' , in Renate Bridenthal, Becoming Visible, Women in European History (1987 Edition), pp. 285–300.
Meanwhile, women in the countryside initiated 'counter-revolutionary' protests against the new government's policies of the repression of the Church and the conscription of male peasants into the army.James Mcmillan, France and Women, 1789–1914, pp. 25–26e.g. War in the Vendée
During the French Revolution, women led the fight for religion. Their fight would lead the way for the feminization of religions. Women felt that they were responsible for maintaining a spiritual balance within their family. They fought harder than their male counterparts, sometimes invoking violent and illegal actions to get their voices heard. If women were arrested, the men in their lives would downplay the damage they could do, and women were seen as more hysterical and vulnerable as a whole, so society generally thought little of their violent and illegal actions. But if a woman refused or avoided taking part in petitions or marches, she would be shamed until guilted into taking part.
Women during the French Revolution also fought for their own rights. Aristocratic women were not as likely to partake in the activities that could ruin their family and/or their chance of inheriting the family fortune (or what she would receive), so they were reluctant to participate. Working class women also faced this dilemma, but because they were already suppressed, the good of what they could achieve outweighed the loss of family pride and/or fortune. Louis XVI had allowed all people who paid taxes to vote, but since women could not pay taxes, they could not vote. While the Third Estate made rules, women would present their opinions through pamphlets and petitions to let the Third Estate know what they wanted. Pétition des femmes du Tiers-Etat au Roi stated that women wanted education to go beyond French and Latin for church, more jobs to be available to women, and to raise the maximum pay of 5–6 sous. Motion en Faveur du Sexe and Discours préliminaire de la pauvre Javotte focused on dowries and marriage. In the working class, finding a job was hard enough for men, harder for women, and saving enough money to get married was almost impossible. Women did not want to have to pay a dowry to get married; this applied only in the Third Estate. The Rights of Woman by Olympe de Gouges was a complete pamphlet that stated all the rights that women should have. It was copied almost word for word from the Declaration of the Rights of Man, but applied to women. Another booklet, Griefs et plaintes des femmes mal mariées, criticised marriage laws that entailed women submitting to men, and demanded the legalization of divorce.
Within the bourgeoisie, Madame Etta Palm van Aelder was a leading figure in fighting for women's rights. She demanded the equal right to education, political freedom, divorce and the legal freedom of women of age 21 and over. While political freedom would not be gained until after the Revolution, all of van Aelder's other demands would be met in some way. In August 1792, women aged 21 and above were given legal freedom from their parents. In September 1792, women were granted the right to divorce and the Law of 1794 eased the divorce process. Educational programs were advanced and allowed women to be trained for careers, but they still did not obtain equality. Female teachers were paid less than males and primary school classes were divided by gender. After the advancements and improvements in the educational system, women were not much better off than before.