by

Jürgen Habermas’s bourgeois public sphere theory led many historians to adopt new categories of social divisions. More specifically, gender historians utilized the theory in order to explain the exclusion of women from the political realm. Imparting male and female classifications onto the public and private spheres, in turn, led to the claim of complete social immobility for women. In the 1990s and 2000s, however, gender historians began to question the rigidity of the gendered spheres. This study adopts this line of argument by looking at the lives of Madame de Staël, George Sand, and Lucie Aubrac. These women present three different instances of female participation in the political realm. Women greatly impacted French history throughout the centuries. The French Revolution gave birth to radicals and conservatives alike, but it also provided the perfect backdrop for a woman to implant herself in the public sphere. Anne Louise Germaine de Staël was such a woman. Before and during the French Revolution, she used the men in her life to participate in politics. Always on the cusp of revolution, the country onc