First off, to describe Cumann na mBan as a "feminist group and tried to take over Ireland," is a fantasy that projects modern values and mores on an early twentieth-century group and posits an end goal for them that is absurd. While Cumann na mBan certainly did participate in the Rising and subsequent Irish Wars, they were one of several groups working for this goal. This is why the antifeminist line that they murdered people is also nonsensical because there were plenty of other groups in Ireland that did the same. Singling out Cumann na mBan for engaging in killing other human beings during the Rising and subsequent events is a bit like handing out speeding tickets to a driver during a Formula One race.

To put it basically, Cumann na mBan was the female auxiliary component to Irish Volunteers Army (IVA) while the Irish Citizens Army allowed women to join outright (Irish politics is complicated to say the least in this period with shifting factions and acronyms, for simplicity's sake IVA is a placeholder for a more fractious situation). Cumann na mBan, much like many others within the Irish national movement, wanted an end to British rule and an independent Ireland. Needless to say, what exactly constituted ending both British rule and independence was the source of much debate within many Irish groups. Some factions proposed backing Home Rule and political negotiation while still others tacked to a more militaristic seizure of independence. The IVA, and by extension Cumann na mBan, tended to be more militant in their positions, but they were far from united. The idea though of Irish women taking to the streets in an armed struggle was not one that went without debate though. The position and role of women in the Irish national movement and the IVA was controversial. Some men conceptualized women as natural auxiliaries who could raise money and support in peace, but would aid the IVA in war. Other men were much more leery of women's involvement within the cause and politics in general.

The opinions of Padraig Pearse on women exemplified some of the contradictions men hewed to when they conceptualized women in the national cause. At the risk of understating things, Pearse had a very complex relationship to both women and to Catholicism. His politics and his religion were intertwined in his notion that Ireland needed a blood sacrifice to save the soul of the nation. His extreme brand of Catholicism did cause him to view women as being purer; in his written works he often compares women to the Virgin Mary. He did believe that women should be included in the 1916 Easter Proclamation as equals in citizenship, which was progressive for his era and separated him from some of his male contemporaries. Pearse also insisted that the leaders of the 1916 garrisons allow women to take part in the Rising. Bear in mind that this does not necessarily mean that he saw women as equals in all other ways. Ultimately, he asked the women to leave their garrisons before the surrender because he feared the site of women being arrested would upset the men. He wanted things to go smoothly and he felt that if men saw the women being arrested, they would take up arms again. This again, suggests that his desire for women to take part in the state was tempered by the notion that women need protection.

The other leaders of the Rising were mixed in their opinions of women as well. Women in Cumann na mBan and the IVA had done a lot of dangerous work for the nation prior to the Rising, especially where gun-running was concerned, but most men balked at the idea of them being involved in actual combat. On a more prosaic level, the sight of masses of Irish women in public also shocked a number of commentators. When around a thousand Cumann na mBan volunteers marched at the funeral the Fenian O'Donnavan Rossa in 1915, contemporaneous newspaper accounts thought that so many women marching must have been related to suffragism. This confusion very likely prompted Cumann na mBan to adapt a paramilitary uniform in 1915 and an increased regimen of training to give the organization a more military-like appearance. This move towards a more martial organization was somewhat controversial at the time.

James Connolly was atypical in that he had a progressive view of women and allowed them to join the Irish Citizen Army on the same terms as the men. Constance de Markievicz occasionally commented on the fact that the ICA had beaten the Russians in being the first military to allow women in its ranks. And, it is worth noting that Markievicz was chosen as James Connolly's 'ghost' or second-in-command. She was not allowed to command her own garrison, but she was second-in-command at St. Stephen's Green under Michael Mallin during the Rising. She was said to be the best shot in all of Ireland and even taught shooting and gun-related skills to Na Fianna Éireann, which was an all male organization akin to the Boy Scouts, albeit with much more paramilitary overtones.

On the other end of the spectrum, Eamon de Valera, who was commanding the Third Battalion at Boland's Mill, saw women as of little use for the Rising. He famously refused to have women at his garrison at all, even though he was defying direct orders by doing so. He later admitted that he was sorry he hadn't let the women in because he had to waste some good men on cooking rather than fighting. De Valera had the most misogynistic views of the leaders, despite his backhanded compliment that women were "at once the boldest and most unmanageable revolutionaries." These views would carry over into his changes to the Constitution in the 1930s, in which he enshrined women's roles as "wives and mothers" and restricted their duties as citizens.

What is even more interesting is the way that the women viewed themselves. While there were women who felt they should stay out of combat, a number of them were quite eager to take part on equal terms. Margaret Skinnider, a member of the Glasgow Cumann na mBan , actually came over from Scotland to take part in the fighting in Dublin. While it is difficult to say how many women were direct combatants, there were a number of female snipers referenced by the witness statements taken by the Bureau of Military History. It is safe to say that they were all endangered by their work whether they were soldiers, messengers, nurses, or cooks. In fact, one nurse had the heel shot off of her shoe while trying to move a wounded man and another got a bullet through her skirt. As one commentator stated "none of them [dispatch carriers] returned unsuccessful. That was a point of honour with them--to succeed or be killed." All in all, there were 200 women in the Easter Rising and about eighty women were imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol following the Rising.

It is also worth noting that British authorities did not take the women as seriously as their male counterparts. Again, this speaks to the widespread idea that women are the weaker sex and couldn't possibly be revolutionaries. In fact, when Kathleen Lynn brought out the surrender, the British soldiers had a debate over whether they should even accept capitulation from a woman. Documents regarding the women prisoners suggest that the soldiers did not really want to imprison them due to their perceived fragility, but they knew they could not safely release them either. The women actually sang and sassed their captors on their way out, something that would have been quite dangerous for their male counterparts. However, it is also worth noting that the women in prison felt sexually threatened by their male captors who leered at them while they were in the toilet. Being a woman simultaneously allowed them to get away with certain activities, while also leaving female prisoners with fears of sexual violence. The Irish War of Independence and Civil Wars would have similarly complicated sexual dimensions.

One of the more salient aspects of the trajectory of Cumann na mBan was that their gender put them at a disadvantage in the postwar period. While men could be valorized as martyrs or even villains in the Rising and its aftermath, Cumann na mBan was locked out of these memory projects. If they were mentioned at all in commemorations of the Rising, it was often as a scapegoat for some of the bad behavior of the men during the Rising and its aftermath. This was in spite of the fact that Cumann na mBan was active not only in the Civil War, but also during the peace. Both the organization and its members could be quite vocal in their politics. In general, the leadership of Cumann na mBan backed away from issues of women's rights or serving in the Free State government because of the firm anti-Treaty stance of Cumann na mBan. This was of some use to De Valera as he clawed his way into power, but Dev generally did not repay this support. He never actually declared the republic he had been promising for decades; it was his successor for the office of Taioseach, John A. Costello, who made that declaration and forced the UK to recognize the Irish Republic in 1949. He likewise did not really see Cumann na mBan's efforts as worthy of note and generally had no use for women's activism in Irish politics. This was exemplified by an exchange between Dev and Maire Comerford. She was a Cumann na mBan member and a former anti-Treaty proponent during the civil war, who had written for de Valera's paper the Irish Press in the 1930s and when she confronted de Valera at the 1966 Commemoration of the 1916 Rising. She angrily asked him if he was shocked that the republic had been betrayed, echoing Dev's words during the walkout, and De Valera responded that it was a pity that "some people believed their own propaganda; and some people believe it still."