Reason's Muse: Sexual Difference and the Birth of Democracy (Women in Culture and Society)

The French Revolution proclaimed the equality of all human beings, yet women remained less than equal in the new society. The exclusion of women at the birth of modern democracy required considerable justification, and by tracing the course of this reasoning through early nineteenth-century texts, Genevieve Fraisse maps a moment of crisis in the history of sexual difference.Through an analysis of literary, religious, legal, philosophical, and medical texts, Fraisse links a range of positions on women's proper role in society to specific historical and rhetorical circumstances. She shows how the Revolution marked a sharp break in the way women were represented in language, as traditional bantering about the "war of the sexes" gave way to serious discussions of the political and social meanings of sexual difference. Following this discussion on three different planes—the economical, the political, and the biological—Fraisse looks at the exclusion of women against the backdrop of democracy's inevitable lie: the affirmation of an equality so abstract it was impossible to concretely apply.This study of the place of sexual equality in the founding moment of democracy offers insight into a persistent question: whether female emancipation is to be found through the achievement of equality with men or in the celebration of female difference.

History

Fraisse, Geneviève

Europe

University of Chicago Press

The French Revolution proclaimed the equality of all human beings, yet women remained less than equal in the new society. The exclusion of women at the birth of modern democracy required considerable justification, and by tracing the course of this reasoning through early nineteenth-century texts, Genevieve Fraisse maps a moment of crisis in the history of sexual difference. Through an analysis of literary, religious, legal, philosophical, and medical texts, Fraisse links a range of positions on women's proper role in society to specific historical and rhetorical circumstances. She shows how the Revolution marked a sharp break in the way women were represented in language, as traditional bantering about the "war of the sexes" gave way to serious discussions of the political and social meanings of sexual difference. Following this discussion on three different planes—the economical, the political, and the biological—Fraisse looks at the exclusion of women against the backdrop of democracy's inevitable lie: the affirmation of an equality so abstract it was impossible to concretely apply. This study of the place of sexual equality in the founding moment of democracy offers insight into a persistent question: whether female emancipation is to be found through the achievement of equality with men or in the celebration of female difference.

Americas

The French Revolution opened a whole new stage in the history of women, despite their conspicuous absence from the playbill. The coming century would see women’s subordination to men codified in all manner of new laws and rules; and yet the period would also witness the birth of feminism, the unprecedented emergence of women as a collective force in the political arena.
The fourth volume in this world-acclaimed series covers the distance between these two poles, between the French Revolution and World War I. It gives us a vibrant picture of a bourgeois century, dynamic and expansive, in which the role of woman in the home was stressed more and more, even as the economic pressures and opportunities of the industrial revolution drew her out of the house; in which woman’s growing role in the family as the center of all morals and virtues pressed her into public service to fight social ills.

History of Women in the West, Volume IV: Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War

Reference

Belknap Press

Du consentement

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

SEUIL

Muse de la Raison: Démocratie et exclusion des femmes en France

Фоліо

Sartre écrit, dans Plaidoyer pour les intellectuels, que l'intellectuel est celui qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas, quand Beauvoir - à l'évidence - se mêle de ce qui la regarde, dans ses livres Le Deuxième Sexe, La Vieillesse. La question sexe/genre s'impose désormais comme problème théorique, mais l'objet de pensée échappe encore à la sérénité académique, comme à la légitimité scientifique. L'étudiante Geneviève Fraisse a compris que la philosophie était le bastion le plus solide, parce que le plus symbolique, de la prérogative masculine. Alors il fallait chercher les mots possibles de l'émancipation féministe, de la démocratie exclusive au consentement par exemple, pour leur donner une consistance conceptuelle et les colporter sur les chemins de l'universel. L'histoire est un bon matériau, les textes anciens comme l'actualité récente, voire les événements tel Metoo. Car il faut s'introduire dans la tradition pour mieux la subvertir.

Féminisme et philosophie (Folio essais) (French Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

La raison des femmes (French Edition)

Foreign Language Study & Reference

PLON

L'histoire des femmes en occident - tome 4 le XIXe siècle (4)

DUBY, Georges

Perrot, Michelle

Romance

TEMPUS PERRIN

Les Excès du genre: Une enquête philosophique

POINTS

Muse de la raison: La démocratie exclusive et la différence des sexes (Collection "Femmes et révolution") (French Edition)

Social Sciences

Alinéa

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