«Qui peut définir les femmes ?». L'idée de la «nature féminine» au siècle des Lumières

Lieselotte Steinbrugge : Who can define woman ? The idea of feminine nature in the Enlightenment. For 18th-century thinkers, the nature of woman was the subject of medical, historiographical, anthropological, philosophical and literary discourse, some com mon aspects of which are outlined here. The Encyclopédie (faithful to the 17th-century tradition of Poulain de la Barre) reflects the transition from en egalitarian position to a discourse that treats the relationship between the sexes in terms of difference. Around the mid-century the shift from rationalism to sensualism had profound effects on female anthropology. This is shown in Dr Pierre Roussel' s Système physique et moral de la femme (1775) which claims that woman, because of her physical constitution, is intellectually inferior to man. Through an analysis of the 5th chapter of Emile in the context of the two Discours, the author aims at showing that for Rousseau the image of woman is linked to the idea of rationality and to his anthropological system.Steinbrügge Lieselotte. «Qui peut définir les femmes ?». L'idée de la «nature féminine» au siècle des Lumières. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°26, 1994. Economie et politique. pp. 333-348