Women in the French Enlightenment

<p>This volume deals with philosophical scientific and ideological images of women during the French Enlightenment examining their emergence in the reflections of the <i>philosophes</i> in Catholic morality in biological and medical knowledge in novels in periodicals and in the law.</p><p>Alongside the appeals for social and intellectual emancipation advanced by the <i>femmes savantes </i>typical of the eighteenth-century salons a new conception pertaining to women’s social role related to the affirmation of the bourgeoisie and of its model of the family took place. Codified in a more complex and organized way within the Rousseauian philosophy this new conception spread in various cultural debates gaining a real hegemony: women were meant to be excluded from any public space devoid of cultural aspirations and only devoted to satisfying the needs of the family.</p><p>The book adopts a multidisciplinary interdisciplinary and synthetic approach and at the same time highlights the roots of some fundamental ways of considering women that are still active in present-day society. It also addresses researchers in the history of philosophy sociology literature and gender studies and readers with an interest in women’s issues.</p>