SEXUAL/TEXTUAL POLITICS IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT: DIDEROT and D'EPINAY RESPOND TO THOMAS'S ESSAY ON WOMEN
Year: 1996
Type: article
Abstract: In January I 772, Antoine-Leonard Thomas, member of the French Academy and habitue of Mme Necker's prestigious salon, published a I 40-page treatise entitled Essai sur le carucrtk les m(l-'urs et l'esprit des femmes dans les dgfirents si6cles.'In it, he proposed to examine women's role and condition in various periods and to probe to what extent their character, behaviour and capabilities are derived from nature or nurture.After a lengthy historical survey, Thomas returned to his central question: 'Si aucune femme ne s'est mise a c6te des hommes celebres, est-ce la faute de l'education ou de la nature?' (p.74).The response he offers is highly ambiguous.Because of their sheltered life, 'delicate fibres' and 'natural' modesty, women are in his view less able than men to feel and express strong emotions, and hence less able to create great art: 'Je demanderai si leurs fibres, plus delicates, ne doivent pas craindre des sensations fortes qui les fatiguent', he says.'Sauront-elles, comme l'auteur d'Andromaque et de Phedre exprimer les transports d'une iime troublee qui joint les fureurs a l'amour [...I? non: et c'est la nature elle-m&me qui le leur defend' (pp.75-77).Thomas further maintains that women are less apt to excel in artistic or intellectual pursuits, since the inferiority of their minds is compounded by their 'natural' impatience and lack of perseverance.Invoking traditional gender stereotypes and hierarchies (man as active creative principle, woman as passive mirror), he subtly shifts from the physical to the psychological, from the natural to the social, which he presents as mutually reinforcing and mutually justifying: L'homme toujours actif est expose aux orages.L'imagination du poete se nourrit sur la cime des montagnes, aux bords des volcans, sur les mers, sur les champs de bataille.[. ..]Mais les femmes, par leur vie sedentaire et molle, eprouvant moins le contraste du doux et du terrible, peuvent-elles sentir et peindre, mSme ce qui est agreable?[...I Peut-Stre leur imagination, quoique vive, resemble-t-elk au miroir qui reflechit tout, mais ne Cree rien. (p.76)In this passage, Thomas extends the notion of separate spheres and the sexual division of labour from the social world to the realm of ideas and artistic creation.He also implicitly adopts the assumptions underlying traditionalistnaturalist discourse2 on women: that they are by nature inferior to and dependent upon men, that their primary function is to serve as wives and mothers, and that they should therefore be excluded from the public sphere and educated for a strictly domestic role.Like other traditionalists, Thomas appealed to history, to custom and above all to nature to justify women's continued subordination.Although Thomas expresses sympathy for the oppressed condition of women, he in no way challenges traditional gender structures.In fact, his essay tends on the whole only to reinforce misogynistic stereotypes: 'Par leur nature, [les femmes] sont plus portees a tous les genres de dissimulation', he maintains.'Ouvrez l'Histoire, vous les verrez toujours voisines de l'excks de la pitie ou de
Author: Mary Trouille
Institution: Illinois State University
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2125822017