Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's History, by Marilyn Yalom, presents the views of women who took part in the revolution. What makes the book special is that Yalom lets the women speak for themselves in their own words, from dozens of preserved accounts. Their personal histories record their own role in that revolution. We learn the essential roles of women in the transformation of France at the end of the eighteenth century, and we learn that women were treated unequally by men who led the revolution, despite women's many minor and major contributions.
At the same time, most importantly, the accounts and Yalom's interpretations make clear that women were hardly passive victims of male manipulations during the revolution, but took active roles in both advancing it and protesting its injustices.
Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, edited by Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine, takes an interdisciplinary approach to the roles of women in the revolution. The sixteen contributors reveal that women's participation in the revolution cut across class lines and was based on both practical and idealistic considerations. Male leaders of the revolution took advantage of female participants, using their contributions but denying them equal status. The editors make clear that their purpose is to advance feminist and critical theory in relation to the subject at hand. Specifically, the various articles have been selected in order to illuminate the nature of gender politics as it served to energize, distort, and define the revolution and its aftermath.
This study will be a comparative analysis of two books on the role of women in the French Revolution: Marilyn Yalom's Blood Sisters, and Rebel Daughters, a collection of essays edited by Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine. The study will argue that there are far more similarities than differences between the two books, and that, taken together, they give the rea...