section_path: Role of women
section_name: Role of women
paragraph_text: Role of women
  
  Deprived of political rights by the Ancien Régime, the Revolution initially allowed women to participate, although only to a limited degree. Activists included Girondists like Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, and Charlotte Corday, killer of Marat. Others like Théroigne de Méricourt, Pauline Léon and the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women supported the Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the National Assembly and took part in the October 1789 March to Versailles. Despite this, the 1791 and 1793 constitutions denied them political rights and democratic citizenship.
  
  In 1793, the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women campaigned for strict price controls on bread, and a law that would compel all women to wear the tricolour cockade. Although both demands were successful, in October the male-dominated Jacobins who then controlled the government denounced the Society as dangerous rabble-rousers and made all women's clubs and associations illegal. Organised women were permanently shut out of the French Revolution after 30 October 1793.
  
  At the same time, especially in the provinces, women played a prominent role in resisting social changes introduced by the Revolution. This was particularly so in terms of the reduced role of the Catholic Church; for those living in rural areas, closing of the churches meant a loss of normality. This sparked a counter-revolutionary movement led by women; while supporting other political and social changes, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being. Olwen Hufton argues some wanted to protect the Church from heretical changes enforced by revolutionaries, viewing themselves as "defenders of faith".