Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

self-love, reason and social benevolence 2 From savage to Scotswoman: the history of femininity 3 Roman, Gothic and medieval women: the historicisation of womanhood, 1750-c.1804 4 Catharine Macaulay's histories of England: liberty, civilisation and the female historian 5 Good manners and partial civilisation in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft 6 The history women and the population men, 1760-1830 Notes Bibliography Index vii Introduction: the progress of society Let me observe to you, that the position of women in society, is somewhat different from what it was a hundred years ago, or as it was sixty, or I will say thirty years since. Women are now so highly cultivated, and political subjects are at present of so much importance, of such high interest, to all human beings who live together in society, you can hardly expect, Helen, that you, as a rational being, can go through the world as it now is, without forming any opinions on points of public importance. You cannot, I conceive, satisfy yourself with the common namby-pamby, little missy phrase, 'ladies have nothing to do with politics'.. . Female influence must, will, and ought to exist on political subjects as on all others; but this influence should always be domestic, not public-the customs of society have so ruled it.

Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay on education

“…For biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and accounts of intellectual and political context see Todd, 2000;Jones, C., 2002;Taylor, 2003;Gordon, 2005. 4. In the case of both Wollstonecraft and Macaulay there is considerable controversy about how to classify them in political theory terms-as republican, liberal, etc, and how exactly they relate to subsequent feminisms-and about their exact position vis-a`-vis the complex range of religious and partisan positions of their time and inheritance; see Barker-Benfield, 1989;Hill, 1992;Pocock, 1998;Taylor, 2002Taylor, , 2003Davies, 2005;O'Brien, 2009. Wollstonecraft in particular has been taken to be a key figure in the 'feminist canon', although her understanding of sexuality and embodiment (and the question of her 'puritanism') was a matter of controversy for late 20th-century feminist thinkers as also were her assumptions about domestic labour and class, and hence the identification of feminism as a middle class concern: see Gatens, 1991;Coole, 1993.…”

“…For further detail on the writing of the Vindication seeBromwich, 1995. 3. For biography of Catharine Macaulay and intellectual context seeHill, 1992;Hicks, 2002;Davies, 2005;O'Brien, 2009. 614 E. Frazer…”

Perceptions of gender in early years

“…LeMay Sheffield (2004) notes that Aristotle advised that the significant biological differences between men and women were founded on their reproductive capabilities, which dictated that women and men had separate and different social roles and zones. According to O'Brien (2009), the first sustained questioning of sex as a fixed biological and social determining factor was during the Enlightenment period, which provided opportunities for the historical and philosophical questioning of traditional, political and social positions of men and women. The discussions that emerged from this period created a structure and a language for understanding gendered organisations of society (ibid).…”

Lord Kames's analysis of the natural origins of religion: theEssays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion(1751)

“…As we shall see, Kames shared these views in his account of humanity's religious nativism. Where he offered something new was in the process of contextualizing this explanation through his re‐insertion into the discussion of the role of social context on the formation of religious belief …”