Les Droits des Femmes (Women's Rights)

Women's rights in France began in 1948, when the government of the 2nd republic established three rights essential to an efficent democracy: suffrage, employment, education. As in the original French Revolution, women demanded an integral role in the new democracy. The leaders of this push for rights had led previous feminist movements, and focused more on suffrage than other important desires, such as marital reform and better employment oppportunities. This did not mean that marital reform was completely abandoned, however: a radical sect called the Vesuvians advocated equal leadership in families, gave women the right to annul their marriages, and actually wanted to strip women that did not have their own opinions of their rights.
Supporters of feminism argued that as women raised children, they played a critical role in strengthening the republic, and thus needed more rights.

Source of Information: www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/rz/womrgt.htm