Early Modern Women and the Enlightenment

From Witches to WivesEarly Modern Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment1

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Limiting OptionsJoan Kelly Gadol, Did Women Have a RenaissanceReturn to classical texts and teachingClassical Values in the Protestant ReformationIncreasing value of domestic roles4

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1 Timothy 2:11-12A woman should learn in silence and full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must keep silent.6

Ephesians 5:22-23,1 Corinthians 11:8-9Wives, be submissive to your husbands as to the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church, so is the husband the head of his wife. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for man.7Mary and Eve

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Witchcraft Persecutions (and Deaths)mile Durkheim (1858-1917) anomie9Changing Philosophies?Rene Descartes (1596-1650)New philosophyCogito ergo sumCartesian dualismFrancois Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723)10Radical Feminism?Margaret Cavendish (1661-1717)Utopian visions of equalityEquality theoretically possible but culturally unlikelyMary Astell (1661-1731)Advocated absolute necessity of education for women11Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)Response to J-J Rousseau (1712-1778)Necessity of equal education for men and women ACCORDING TO THEIR CLASSAdvocates co-education12RealitiesWomen barred from most formal avenues of education Women also often barred from publishing (unless with her husbands permission)

13And Yet Salons

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