"BLOOD SISTERS" (MARILYN YALOM) & "REBEL DAUGHTERS" (EDS: SARA MELZER & LESLIE RABINE).   Term Paper ID:22148 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Compares books' portrayals of roles of women in French Revolution. Paper Introduction: 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. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. (1993). Rebel Daughters.New York: Oxford University Press.Yalom, Marilyn. We as readers must listen with a third ear when we seek to appraise the "truth" of memory's utterances and the extent to which memoirs are accurate representations of lived events. Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's History, by MarilynYalom, presents the views of women who took part in the revolution. [2]Sara E. For personal events known only to the author, we must trust a more subjective guideline: does it ring true? If weare going to closely examine the accounts of the women in Yalom for suchpersonal bias, then we must apply the same standards to the largely male-authored histories of the French Revolution. That is, one of the major points of Yalom and Melzer and Rabine isthat the gender aspects of history in general and the French Revolution inparticular have been largely ignored by historians to date. The editors make clear that their purpose isto advance feminist and critical theory in relation to the subject at hand.Specifically, the various articles have been selected in order toilluminate the nature of gender politics as it served to energize, distort,and define the revolution and its aftermath. It is perhaps not entirelyfair to say that Yalom's book is more "convincing" in terms of itsarguments, for the arguments of the two works generally are in alignmentwith one another. After all, every historian, everywriter, every observer, every participant is either male or female, andvery likely has a conscious view of the status of gender relations. Again, Melzerand Rabine give us a useful and more scholarly look at these issues, but itis Yalom's work which more engages this reader on a visceral level. Their work is necessarily lessaccessible than Yalom's book, which brings the characters of therevolutionary women themselves to the forefront. [3]Ibid., 4. This is in part due to the fact that the women themselves hadto have been passionately involved in a very thrilling, and thenfrustrating, adventure. Women were seen to be participants, but only on a passive orsecondary basis. Their personalhistories record their own role in that revolution. Another reason for this reader's choice of Yalom's book as the more"convincing" is that it requires more active participation on the part ofthe reader. Again, the booksshould be read in conjunction with one another, for they complement ratherthan clash with or contradict one another. Blood Sisters. [8]Ibid., 243.----------------------- 7 The sixteen contributors reveal thatwomen's participation in the revolution cut across class lines and wasbased on both practical and idealistic considerations. The differences between the two books are matters more of form thanof content. Assessing memoirs as historical documents is a very challenging enterprise.[7] Of course, to some extent, every account of an event---whether"personal" or "historical" or "scholarly" or "factual"---is filtered through the biases, unique perspectives, andpsychological/emotional investments of the individual who is doing theaccounting. Melzer and Leslie W.Rabine. Or, to put the matter another way: In order to win rights and freedoms, women had to, and still must, rebel against a revolution that ultimately rejected and excluded them, but they could, and can, justify and articulate their claims only by virtue of the principles established by that revolution.[3] After establishing the historical context of women's role in therevolution, Melzer and Rabine introduce the themes and perspectives oftheir contributing essayists. Yalomnotes that the comparison between revolutionary and literary activity isnot a minor or idle one, because women were also seen as "passive" readersrather than "active" writers.[6] In other words, men were seen to be incharge at every stage of social, political, economic and even literaryactivity. The study will argue that there are far more similarities thandifferences between the two books, and that, taken together, they give thereader a comprehensive understanding of both the true role of women in therevolution, and the failure of most earlier research to provide such anunderstanding. The analogy with citizenship is apt here, for the early Revolution had designated all women as "passive citizens" and men who met certain criteria as "active citizens," granting the vote only to the latter.[5] If we are to empathize with the basic desire of the women of theFrench Revolution to be active and gender-equal participants in therevolution and the fruits of that revolution, then we must be activereaders of the history of that revolution and women's roles in it. Clearly, the Melzer-Rabine collection of fifteen articles(including the Introduction) give the reader a less focused portrait ofwomen in the revolution than does Yalom's book. New York: BasicBooks.----------------------- [1]Marilyn Yalom, Blood Sisters (New York: BasicBooks, 1993), 6. This is not to say that theessayists in Melzer and Rabine do not make important contributions to theunderstanding of women's complex and often paradoxical roles in therevolution, for they certainly do. For the great public happenings, there are sometimes multiple accounts, allowing for collective verification. [5]Yalom, 92. To identify with these women, the reader must psychologicallyengage them as he or she reads their accounts: When memory speaks, it is notoriously inventive. So what changes with the French Revolution? It marks a new era that holds out to women the promise of inclusion in its universal community of equal human subjects only to snatch that promise away when women rise up to actively claim its fulfillment.[2] Women were, therefore, cast into the difficult and paradoxical roleof first throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the revolution, beingbetrayed by the revolution, and then fighting against the anti-woman thrustof the revolution: In order to seek inclusion within [the Revolution's] community, women had to rebel against that community and its ideology. What Yalomand Melzer and Rabine have tried to do is bring forth the feminist issueswhich have been submerged in the male-interpretation of the Revolution.They have not imposed a feminist perspective, but have rather drawn out ofthe events and their historical portraits the gender issues which were atplay and which tended to restrict women's roles and status. Melzer and Rabine are effective in establishing the particularhistorical significance of the short shrift women were given in the FrenchRevolution: Of course the asymmetry of gender that connotes man as central and primary, woman as peripheral and secondary predates the French Revolution by centuries if not millennia. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (eds.), Rebel Daughters (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3. For this reason, Yalom's book is the moreinvolving and convincing for this reader. At the sametime, the gender biases of the men who led the Revolution, and the men whorecorded and analyzed the events and significance of the Revolution, haveplayed a major role in shaping our perception of the Revolution. Rabine, takes an interdisciplinary approach to theroles of women in the revolution. There is, however, a general theme which allof the essayists touch upon to some extent. . [7]Ibid., 6-7. We who have a political voice unknown to the women of 1789 would do well to keep them in mind as we make our way through a world that has not yet learned to prevent, much less minimize, the human costs of radical social change.[8] ReferencesMelzer, Sara E., and Rabine, Leslie W. In whatever order they are read, thetwo books give the reader a well-rounded understanding of both the personaland the historical/theoretical aspects of women's involvement in the FrenchRevolution. . In reporting the personal story of Madame Roland, Yalom writesthat She could finally aspire to full citizenship in that republic of letters which she had renounced at age twenty-two because of her sex. (eds.) (1992). . To truly experience as much as possible thisemotional involvement, we simply need to focus on the women themselves, andthere is no more meaningful focus in this regard than the stories of thewomen as provided by Yalom. We learn the essentialroles of women in the transformation of France at the end of the eighteenthcentury, and we learn that women were treated unequally by men who led therevolution, despite women's many minor and major contributions. Whatmakes the book special is that Yalom lets the women speak for themselves intheir own words, from dozens of preserved accounts. With respect to the current study, the gender perspective ofthe individual is inevitably involved. However, for this reader, the connectionwith the minds and hearts of the women whose stories comprise the essenceof Yalom's book is a fundamental way to connect with the grand historicalevents in which those women took part. Both authorswant us to relate both historically and personally to the women of therevolution, but Yalom's work focuses more on the personal aspects: "Whatmakes these memoirists worthy of our attention---in addition to their valueas witnesses to the making of history---is the narrator's character thatshines through her words."[1] Both works are thoroughly feminist in perspective, but the Melzer-Rabine collection leans more toward a theoretical focus, in part simplybecause of the wide range of the interests of the various authors of theessays. Yalom is more "convincing" in that she engages thisparticular reader on a personal level, which then gives a more meaningfulcontext to the more scholarly works of the researchers included in Melzerand Rabine. Letting the revolutionary women speak more for themselves, ratherthan seeing them as subjects of a scientific, "multidisciplinary" study (asin the case of Melzer-Rabine), Yalom inevitably focuses more than Melzer-Rabine on the non-scientific, personal and emotional aspects of women'sparticipation in the revolution. The essential significance of Yalom's book is that itbrings to the forefront women as recorders of history---both personal andpolitical. At the same time, most importantly, the accounts and Yalom'sinterpretations make clear that women were hardly passive victims of malemanipulations during the revolution, but took active roles in bothadvancing it and protesting its injustices. The more historical, critical and theoreticalworks in Melzer and Rabine then give us a broader context in which toappreciate the personal accounts of the women themselves. [6]Ibid. The editors write that theessays "demonstrate that gender is not an external, supplementary category,but a founding category of modern politics, culture, and ideology."[4] The editors are clear that their work is aimed at the scholarlyrather than the nonprofessional reader. Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, edited by Sara E.Melzer and Leslie W. With respect tomethodology, we have in Melzer-Rabine a number of approaches, while Yalomprimarily depends on the accounts of the women themselves. . This study will be a comparative analysis of two books on the role ofwomen in the French Revolution: Marilyn Yalom's Blood Sisters, and RebelDaughters, a collection of essays edited by Sara E. . Male leaders of therevolution took advantage of female participants, using their contributionsbut denying them equal status. . As sheconcludes with respect to the revolutionary women and their role aswatchguards of the French Revolution: Devoid of political rights, they claimed the right to remember and to transmit their memories, however personal, to their descendants. [4]Ibid., 7. Though they have never been fully appreciated for their historical, literary, and moral worth, their memoirs still constitute a valuable verbal legacy. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.