"The Unruly Women of Paris"

Paper Summary:

The author of this paper shows how Gullickson clarifies a common misperception of history through unfolding an historical narrative and contrasting popular illustrations and images with historical documentation. The paper shows how this contrast was made using the women of Paris during the Paris Commune of 1871 as an example.

From the Paper:

"Even supporters of the Commune, however, tended to accept the notion of women in politics in schematic, rather than humanistic terms. While the conservatives saw the women of the commune as either furies or devils, supporters both of the day and historians of the past saw the women as ministering angels. Liberals tended to see the women of the commune also, not as soldiers engaging in a struggle, or engaging in intelligent and vital actions and negotiating strategies, but merely as physical representations of freedom (like Marianne in the painting Liberty Leading the People)."

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