Meta-rule for revolutions: revolutions are started by women—or, at least, the first violence is committed by women. This is true for both Russia’s February Revolution and the French Revolution. It happens because the women get fed up queuing or are short of food to feed their children and so begin to protest—often with considerable violence. In Russia, it was the queues—longer than usual—that irritated the women; they went to the factories to fetch their menfolk and the confrontation with Tsardom began (it was soon to be revealed quite how weak the Tsar was). In France, the women marched on Versailles and provided the first direct confrontation between “peuple” and king—a confrontation that the king lost, it was his first substantial disgrace.
The point is not feminist and feminists are not very keen on it. The feminist wants women in a revolution to be in the same position as Lenin—i.e. in the Smolny Institute planning the revolution. Yet the actual role women play in revolution is in line with their character: they are irritated that they cannot feed their children easily (perhaps there is enough food but it takes too long to get, it’s the minor irritations with bureaucracy that often spark revolutions). It is the mother’s she-bear wildness. Hence it is in their position as mothers that women instigate revolution—and feminists reject that, they think women should act like men.
That’s not to say women carry the whole revolution through; it’s just they provide that initial spark that sets off further events—Carlyle describes the French women as “Maenads”, wild creatures that tear at the flesh. The same could happen today. In America, a few months ago, there was a shortage of baby formula—and it is easy to imagine how a similar supply-chain blockage could lead women into a fight with the security services, so causing an incident that led to further violence (especially if black women, being ideologically important to the left, were involved).