Moderata Fonte's dialogueThe Worth of Women(1600) contains stinging critiques of marriage and the dowry system as well as of women's inequality. I argue that Fonte's critique of male dominance, particularly in marriage, employs a modern method of argument, which anticipates the later contractarian critiques of political authority. Given that women are naturally men's equals, Fonte argues that men's de facto authority over women is illegitimate and based on force. Moreover, by treating marriage as an artificial institution rather than as a (...) natural institution, Fonte anticipates later feminist arguments that criticize the modern contract tradition for its failure to extend its critique of other forms of authority to patriarchal marriage, instead positing a natural basis for women's subordination to men. In light of this history, Fonte's critique of patriarchy is especially interesting: it challenges the patriarchal family structure and the institutions that collude to diminish women's agency, and this challenge to male authority is similar to later (male) challenges to de facto political authority. (shrink)

This article examines two early modern feminist works, Woman Not Inferior to Man and Woman's Superior Excellence Over Man, written by “Sophia, A Person of Quality.” Scholars once dismissed these texts as plagiarisms or semi-translations of François Poulain de la Barre's De l’égalité des deux sexes. More recently, however, Guyonne Leduc has drawn attention to the original aspects of these treatises by highlighting Sophia's significant variations on Poulain's vocabulary. In this article, I take Leduc's analysis a step further by demonstrating (...) that Sophia's variations amount to unique and distinctive arguments for the restoration of women's rights, based on both the natural equality and the moral superiority of women compared to men. I argue that Sophia goes beyond Poulain's Cartesian insights to mount a critique of male tyranny characterized as a lack of generosity toward women. My contention is that Sophia's texts represent a culmination in a line of reasoning that extends from the querelle des femmes of the Renaissance to Poulain's Cartesian feminism of the seventeenth century, through to arguments for women's rights in the eighteenth century. Her works thus warrant greater recognition as significant turning points in the history of feminist thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines Olympe de Gouges’ demands for the rights of woman in her famous but still understudied work Les droits de la femme. A La Reine [1791]. Particular emphasis is put on analysing how she combines her demand for equality with her conception of sexual difference. The article consists of three parts. The first part gives a brief overview of the demands for the equality of the sexes as they were presented in seventeenth-century France and critically reacted upon (...) in eighteenth-century France, not least by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his defence of sexual difference. The second and third parts focus on Gouges’ argumentation. First, by analysing how she argues for women’s active citizenship by criticising the exclusion of women from the public sphere, but without questioning sexual difference as such; and second, by discussing how she redefines the famous slogan of the French Revolution; liberty, equality, fraternity. The conclusion argues that rather than being caught in a paradox of equality and difference, as has been claimed by Joan W. Scott, Gouges did successfully combine the two concepts, even if her interpretation of their relation was excluded from the canon of political theory. (shrink)

In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir cited the fairly unknown author Poulain de la Barre in an epigraph for The Second Sex (1949). When reading The Second Sex, one soon realizes that there are profound similarities between the two authors’ discussions of women’s situation. Both Poulain and Beauvoir view the subjection of women as a process that includes choice as well as force. Liberation necessarily requires overcoming opinions rooted in custom and prejudice. The article develops a comparison between the arguments of (...) Poulain and Beauvoir in order to illuminate interesting features in the works of both authors. The focus is on similarities as well as differences. The first section examines how prejudice and the practices of men’s self-interest have contributed to the reification of women. Section 2 discusses the peculiar nature of prejudices about oneself and section 3 focuses on the metaphysical relation between freedom and materiality. Finally, section 4 examines how mutual recognition becomes possible in the context of freedom, the search for truth, and friendship. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir cited the fairly unknown author Poulain de la Barre in an epigraph for The Second Sex (1949). When reading The Second Sex, one soon realizes that there are profound similarities between the two authors’ discussions of women’s situation. Both Poulain and Beauvoir view the subjection of women as a process that includes choice as well as force. Liberation necessarily requires overcoming opinions rooted in custom and prejudice. The article develops a comparison between the arguments (...) of Poulain and Beauvoir in order to illuminate interesting features in the works of both authors. The focus is on similarities as well as differences. The first section examines how prejudice and the practices of men’s self-interest have contributed to the reification of women. Section 2 discusses the peculiar nature of prejudices about oneself and section 3 focuses on the metaphysical relation between freedom and materiality. Finally, section 4 examines how mutual recognition becomes possible in the context of freedom, the search for truth, and friendship. (shrink)