In the early years of the French Revolution of 1789, women were active in militant roles: they led the bread riots, cotton protests, and many other movements. The male leaders watched this trend with dismay, then in 1792 they decided to do something about it. There was a backlash against the new women activists, they were painted as amazons and undesirable as women. Any woman who persisted in activism or requests for equality was seen as an abomination, going against the natural order of the world. By the time Colet published her first collection of poetry, more than 40 years later, women were completely oppressed in every level of French society.

The few women who dared to continue their quest for equal rights were seen as throwbacks to the Revolutionary era, spouting the ideals of a failed movement. Colet, like several other women of this ementality, worked to be self supporting and independent, and in doing so earned herself the hatred of many male critics.

When Colet began her career, her work was greatly influenced by the early revolution mentality. In several of her works, such as La Jeunesse de Mirabeau, Colet drew upon revolutionary figures and ideals for inspiration. Most notable of these were her two feminist dramas, Charlotte Corday and Madame Roland. Charlotte Corday and Madame Roland were two heroes of the French Revolution who were martyred for their cause. Colet painted a dramatic portrait of the two and published them in a combined volume.

The work recieved mixed reactions, most notable a harsh criticism from George Sand. Sand accused Colet of choosing the wrong side of the Revolution to support in her writing. She wrote to Colet, saying, "You do not understand the Revolution. Up to now, you have been too preoccupied with facts. Facts do not prove as much as you would like them to. If you instead focused on ideas, you would realize that the furor and delirium of a political party does not disprove the idea on which it was founded." Even among the educated of the time, the revolution was a continual matter of contention and conflict.

Colet's critics often saw her as drawing on the wrong influences from revolutionary ideals. One such critic, Barbey d'Aurevilly, attacked Colet as a "fastidiously impious Jacobin bluestocking, radical to the point of being bloodthirsty." He added to the assault, "It's the Revolution that this horrible gargoyle keeps spouting from her mouth!"

If views on Colet's revolutionary ideals were mixed at best, views on her feminism were almost universally negative. This was true even among the men closest to her. Her first lover, Victor Cousin, wrote scornfully of women writers: "What is there to say about women writers, about a women who uncovers herself to all eyes, puts herself to bid as if at auction, exposes herself and her innermost feelings to the commercial world?"

Gustave Flaubert voiced even more vemonous opinions, saying "Woman, a vulgar animal, is a production of man; she is a mere result of civilization, a factitious creation." Against such views, Colet steadily produced feminist works, most notably La Poeme de la femme. Flaubert's reaction to these works was predictably negative. He took the greatest offense to the second volume, La Servante, in which Colet attacked the character of Alfred de Musset during their short lived relationship. Upon reading the manuscript of the second volume, Flaubert wrote to Colet, "This work is not publishable as it stands, and I beg you not to publish it! Think of posterity and the pathetic image that the detractors of great men have in it." The words were prophetic, for in attacking Flaubert in her later works, Colet lost the respect of literary critics for generations.