Jane Abray

French women were thwarted in their attempts to improve their political standing during the revolutionary era, Jane Abray contends in the following viewpoint. In Abray’s opinion, this failure was caused by the lack of support from the revolutionary governments and the inability of French feminists to expand their narrow base. Abray explains that although women were granted more freedom in private affairs—such as inheritance, property rights, and divorce—legislators outlawed women’s political clubs. Eventually, even the advances in civil law that benefited women were swept away when Napoleon took control of the nation. In addition, Abray maintains that French feminists failed to work with each other and were not able to change the opinions of most French women, who generally accepted traditional definitions...