Domesticity and Political Participation: At Home with the Jacobin Women

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221079865
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(1) 213–223

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129221079865

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Domesticity and Political Participation: At

Home with the Jacobin Women

Sandrine Bergès

1



Abstract

The exclusion of women from political participation and the separation of private and public spheres seem anchored in

human history to such an extent that we may think they are necessary. I offer an analysis of a philosophical moment in

history, the early years of the French Revolution, where politics and domesticity were not incompatible. I show how this

enabled women to participate in politics from within their homes, at the same time fulf‌illing their duties as wives and

mothers. The republican home, on this interpretation, was a place of power and virtue, a merging of the public and the

private sphere where political ideals and reforms could be born and nurtured. This conception of the home was derived

in great part from a reading of Rousseau’s writings on motherhood. As the inf‌luence of French revolutionary women

became more visible, they were severely repressed. The fact that they could not hold on to a position of power that

derived naturally from the ideals they and others defended, I will suggest, was caused both by the fact that the framework

used to allow women political power was insecure, and by the gradual replacement of republican ideals by liberal ones.

Keywords

political participation, gender, domesticity, public and private sphere, French revolution, feminism

Private and Public Sphere: When Did

Things Go Wrong?

This paper investigates a brief philosophical moment in

European history—the French Revolution between 1789

and 1793—when it was possible for women to participate

in politics. This moment failed to amplify. I ask why it did

and propose the following answer. Women philosophers

of the French Revolution wanted political inf‌luence.

Republican ideals, together with Rousseau’s writings on

motherhood, had opened up a space for women to par-

ticipate from within their homes, fulf‌illing their duties as

wives and mothers in a way that mattered politically. The

republican home, as a place of power and virtue, repre-

sented a merging of the public and the private sphere and a

place where political ideals and reforms could be born and

nurtured. Yet as women’sinf‌luence became more visible,

they were severely repressed and the idea that the home

could be anything other than a place to nurture children

slowly disappeared.

I will argue that the failure of domestic participation to

thrive, or even survive, was a combination of two factors.

First, while it was Rousseau’s ideas that had led to a

conception of domesticity as politically powerful, these

ideas did not hold up to the scrutiny in the light of

Rousseau’s views on women’s nature. Secondly, as re-

publican values gave way to liberal ones from 1795

onward, the family as a political unit gave way to the

individual and the home lost its political aspect. In fact, it

turned out that even the strongest supporters of political

womanhood did not offer unconditional support, and were

quick to withdraw it. I will conclude that while the efforts

of the Jacobin women did not lead to women’s political

emancipation, the ways they found of making the home

central to politics are worth investigating, as they may

help us pursue ways of increasing women’s political

participation.

The pairing of the public and political, or the private

and domestic, has not always been clear-cut, mostly

because family life has not always been thought of as

separate from politics.

1

Carole Pateman argues that civic

republican thought, such as eighteenth-century philoso-

phers engaged with, to some extent enabled women’s

1

Department of Philosophy, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

Corresponding Author:

Sandrine Bergès, Department of Philosophy, Bilkent University, Bilkent,

Ankara 06800, Turkey.

Email: sandrineberges@gmail.com