Let Them Eat Cake: How We're Still Blaming Women for Men's Power
- Ash A Milton
- 14 minutes ago
- 5 min read
When political commentators reach for historical parallels to describe callous indifference to suffering, one quote appears with remarkable consistency: "Let them eat cake." The phrase has become shorthand for aristocratic contempt, a symbol of ruling-class disconnect from ordinary people's struggles. And invariably, it's attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the ill-fated Queen (Consort) of France who lost her head to the guillotine in 1793.
There's just one problem: she never said it.
But the bigger problem—the one that echoes through centuries and into our current political moment—is this: even if someone at Versailles had uttered those words, why do we remember the queen consort rather than the actual king?
The Myth That Won't Die
The "Let them eat cake" quote (originally "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" in French) first appeared in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions," written around 1765 when Marie-Antoinette was just nine years old and still living in Austria. Rousseau attributed the words to "a great princess," but historians have never found evidence that Marie-Antoinette said anything of the sort. The phrase was likely already circulating as anti-aristocratic propaganda before the young Austrian archduchess even arrived in France.
Yet the quote stuck to Marie-Antoinette like glue. Over two centuries later, her name remains inseparable from this symbol of aristocratic cruelty. She has become history's perfect villain—young, beautiful, foreign, female, and conveniently dead.
Meanwhile, her husband—Louis XVI, the actual King of France, the man who held absolute power, who made the political and economic decisions that bankrupted the nation—has largely faded into the background of popular consciousness. When we invoke the French Revolution as a cautionary tale, we conjure Marie-Antoinette's image, not his.
The King Who Made the Decisions
Let's be clear about who actually governed France in the years leading to revolution. Louis XVI inherited a kingdom already straining under massive debts from the Seven Years' War. His decision to support the American Revolution—militarily and financially—pushed France's finances past the breaking point. He appointed and dismissed ministers, refused to implement necessary financial reforms, and ultimately called the Estates-General that set revolutionary events in motion.
Marie-Antoinette, as queen consort, had no constitutional power. She couldn't make laws, set tax policy, or declare war. Yes, she spent lavishly and became a lightning rod for public resentment. Yes, she meddled in political appointments and intrigues. But she was playing with influence, not power—a crucial distinction that gets erased when we make her the face of the ancien régime's failures.
The French economy didn't collapse because of Marie-Antoinette's jewelry. It collapsed because of war debts, an inequitable tax system that exempted the nobility and clergy, poor harvests, and a rigid social structure that Louis XVI, despite some half-hearted attempts, ultimately refused to reform.
Yet in the popular imagination, she became the symbol of everything wrong with the monarchy. The foreign woman. The spendthrift. The frivolous queen who supposedly told starving peasants to eat cake.
A Convenient Scapegoat
This pattern of scapegoating women for systemic failures created by male-dominated power structures isn't unique to the French Revolution. It's a recurring theme throughout history. When things go wrong, when empires crumble or economies fail, the blame often flows downhill to land on women—particularly women who are visible, influential, or transgressive in some way.
Consider Cleopatra, remembered as a seductress who destroyed Mark Antony, rather than as a shrewd political leader navigating impossible circumstances. Or Anne Boleyn, blamed for Henry VIII's break with Rome, as if she—not the king—held the power to reshape England's religious landscape. Or Yoko Ono, who decades later is still blamed for breaking up the Beatles, as if John Lennon and the other band members had no agency in their own decisions.
These women make convenient villains because they allow us to avoid examining the actual power structures and the men who controlled them. They become repositories for our anxiety about women's influence, our discomfort with women who refuse to stay in prescribed roles, and our need for simple narratives with clear villains.
The Contemporary Echo
Which brings us to today's political discourse and the frequent comparisons between Marie-Antoinette's (apocryphal) quote and statements from Trump's administration and allies.
When political figures dismiss genuine hardship—when they suggest people simply find different jobs, move to different states, or fail to grasp the reality of rising costs—commentators reach for "Let them eat cake" as a parallel. The comparison illuminates real disconnects between the powerful and the struggling. It highlights genuine callousness and policy failures that harm vulnerable people.
But here's where we need to pause and examine our own reflexes: are we, once again, using a woman to symbolize failures and cruelty that are overwhelmingly designed and implemented by men?
Donald Trump the President of the United States — he holds actual executive power, which he sought out. His administration makes consequential decisions affecting millions: tax policies, healthcare rules, environmental regulations, responses to crises. When we invoke Marie-Antoinette to criticize this political moment, we're using a powerless woman to metaphorically represent a powerful man's governance.
This isn't to say that women in Trump's orbit—or in any administration—should escape criticism for their roles and statements. Critique those with power, by all means. But when we need a historical shorthand for callous leadership, why do we default to the queen consort rather than the king? Why does Marie-Antoinette remain our go-to symbol when Louis XVI's name has faded into obscurity?
Breaking the Pattern
The persistent myth of "Let them eat cake" reveals something uncomfortable about how we process power and accountability. We're drawn to stories that put women at the center of blame, even when—especially when—men held the actual reins of power.
This pattern serves multiple purposes, none of them good. It lets powerful men escape the full weight of accountability for their actions. It reinforces the notion that women's influence is inherently corrupting or frivolous, even when that influence pales beside men's actual authority. And it perpetuates a kind of historical amnesia where we forget who really made the decisions that shaped nations and lives.
When we criticize contemporary political failures, we should name the people actually making decisions. When we reach for historical parallels, we should ask ourselves why certain figures spring so readily to mind. The reflexive invocation of Marie-Antoinette—a woman who never said the famous words attributed to her and who lacked the constitutional power of the king who governed beside her—should give us pause.
Remembering Louis XVI
Perhaps it's time to retire Marie-Antoinette from her unwanted role as history's symbol of aristocratic contempt. If we need a French royal to represent the failures that led to revolution, Louis XVI is right there. He was the king. He made the policy decisions. He resisted reforms until it was too late. He called in foreign armies to suppress his own people. He tried to flee the country. And yes, he too ended up at the guillotine—but unlike his wife, he's been allowed to fade from popular memory.
The next time political discourse tempts us to invoke "Let them eat cake," we might ask ourselves: Who actually holds power in this situation? Who is making the policies we're criticizing? And why are we so eager to remember the queen while forgetting the king?
History has been unfair to Marie-Antoinette, saddling her with words she never spoke and blame she didn't solely deserve. But the real tragedy isn't just what we did to one eighteenth-century queen. It's that we keep repeating the pattern—finding women to blame for systems of power that men designed, controlled, and refused to reform.
We can do better. We can be more precise in our critiques, more thoughtful about who held power and who merely held influence. We can stop reflexively blaming women for men's failures.
And we can finally let Marie-Antoinette rest in peace, freed from a quote she never said and a blame she never deserved to bear alone.
What other historical women have been unfairly scapegoated for systemic failures? How do we break these patterns in our contemporary discourse? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
(Photos from Pixaby and Facebook)
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