ABSTRACT
The Age of Revolutions, because it overturned so many ancient verities about hierarchy, religion and politics, allowed women across Europe, albeit temporarily, to envision a future in which 'masculine despotism' no longer had free rein. In the tense time that preceded the American Revolutionary War, American women patriots refused to drink imported tea and dusted off their spinning skills to replace British cloth imports with American-made homespun. Women were political players from the earliest days of the French Revolution. Domestic feminism did emerge stronger than ever from the Revolution, thanks to men like Theremin, and even more to the Catholic Church, but it was very much at the expense of more egalitarian strains. Abolitionist and anti-slavery movements were, like the various revolutions, partly a product of the Enlightenment focus on natural rights, though in practice they were often more indebted to the rise of sensibility.
