Immediately after the February Revolution of 1848 in France, women demanded women`s suffrage and the organization of women`s labor. `The women of 1848` demanded women`s suffrage not on the basis of human unity nor on the concept of universal citizensh...
Immediately after the February Revolution of 1848 in France, women demanded women`s suffrage and the organization of women`s labor. `The women of 1848` demanded women`s suffrage not on the basis of human unity nor on the concept of universal citizenship but through the conventional discourse of sexual difference which emphasized motherhood and family. They demanded women`s rights for women`s duty as mothers and insisted that women would contribute to the perfection of the Republic and the progress of all humankind with their rights. They also urged the formations of associations as a way for the organization of women`s labor which would warrant women`s emancipation. The associations would unite domestic labor and wage labor and open up the family, which was a private sphere, to the society. While they represented a combination of women`s liberty and the preservation of women`s conventional roles, the associations encompassed the possibility of radical changes which would transform male and female social roles and relationships. However, the women`s demands were not achieved. Women`s experience with the suffrage and the organization of labor was crucial in `the Republican apprenticeship`, but it was also a rehearsal of the failed revolution preceding the establishment of the Second Empire. The Second Republic bequeathed the republic without `citizenesses` to the Third Republic, which had to restart the Republican apprenticeship which the Second Republic was not able to complete.