Women and REvolution

 

Women's march, St. Petersburg, 1917

Here’s another example of our ignorance of history, like the one about continuing aboriginal ownership of Canada.

An Iranian feminist friend boasted to me proudly of the recent “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in her homeland that this was the first time ever that a revolution has been led by women. See the feminist progress?

This is pretty much the reverse of the truth. 

The Russian revolution was kicked off, most historians would agree, by a mob of women marching to the palace for International Women’s Day, with the cry “Bread and Peace.” At that point, members of the Palace Guard defected to the crowd.

Similarly, in October 1789, a mob of Parisian women marched on Versailles demanding bread—you will recall the comment attributed to Marie Antionette, “let them eat cake.” This event “is often seen as a turning point in the French Revolution, marking the moment when popular action decisively shifted power from the monarchy to the people.” By the time they reached the palace, the National Guard had reluctantly joined the women.

In the EDSA revolution that overthrew Marcos in the Philippines, nuns formed human barricades to stop the tanks. That seemed to be when government resistance broke.

Women usually play the crucial role in any revolution. When they rise up, in a body, the end of that regime is near. For several reasons.

First, women are temperamentally opposed to revolution; they are in favour of stability, docility, and continuity. Freedom means less to them. They only want bread; to live their lives in peace. For women to rise up, the situation must be dire. It means the regime’s natural constituency, its last support, has evaporated.

Second, men are programmed by nature to care for woman. A palace guard might obey orders to fire on a mob of men; but to fire on a mob of women is, to most men, unthinkable. Therefore, when a large mass of women rise up, the government has no defense against them. Men’s allegiance to women intrudes as a higher authority than their allegiance to any job or government or self-interest. If the women want a new government, the men must obey.

Revolutionaries generally understand this. This is why the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chose Rosa Parks to refuse to yield her seat on that bus. This is why Nurse Edith Cavill was so important to British propaganda in the First World War. This is why the group organizing the Freedom Convoy in Canada coalesced behind Tamara Leich as their public face. This is why the early suffragettes tried to get themselves arrested for defying the law and voting; why Emily Darbison deliberately got herself trampled at the Epsom Derby in 1913. 

Women have always had immense power and privilege, at least among developed nations.