Vindicating knowledge : Mary Wollstonecraft’s defense of female education

This essay probes the premises as well as the results of an intergenerational conflict between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft concerning female education and the participation of women in the public dialogue. To explore this conflict, I will begin by examining Rousseau’s and Wollstonecraft’s views on the role of the literary salons, which functioned as platforms of female expression and cultural exchange. I will then explore the mentoring relationships between Wollstonecraft and the Italian editor Elisabetta Caminer Turra. The latter was a keen supporter of Wollstonecraft’s "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" and an opponent of Rousseau’s views. By taking into account the larger sociopolitical context in which the two women disseminated their ideas, I will finally discuss their contribution in the gradual subversion of domesticity as the sole paradigm of female education