Women and the Public Sphere

Abstract

It is evident that the pervasive and gendered rhetorical contrast between public and private worlds was put to many different purposes in eighteenthcentury Britain, as it was in the following century. I want to say immediately that this is of course not an entirely British issue; it is one which in different and specific ways characterised the literature of most Western societies. However, I shall concentrate mainly on Britain and hope that this will stimulate comparative discussion.The contrasts can be illustrated. To the patriot Reverend Richard Brewster in 1759, 'a Race of Men, who prefer the public Good before any narrow or selfish Views -who choose Dangers in Defence of their Country before an inglorious safety, [and] an honourable Death' was to be contrasted with 'the unmanly pleasures of a useless and effeminate life'. 1 To Gilbert Stuart writing from Scotland, public power for women testified to the qualities of a past golden age: 'what evinces their consideration beyond the possibility of a doubt, is the attention they bestowed on business and affairs. They felt, as well as the noble and the warrior, the cares of the community … They went to the public councils or assemblies of their nations, heard the debates of the statesmen, and were called upon to deliver their sentiments.' 2 The historian of women, William Alexander, writing in 1779, contrasted the absence of women from all forms of public employment with the private influence they might exercise:In Britain, we allow a woman to sway our sceptre, but by law and custom we debar her from every other government but that of her own family, as if there were not a public employment between that of superintending the kingdom, and the affairs of her own kitchen, which could be managed by the genius and capacity of woman. We neither allow women to officiate at our altars,

Special Section: Transnational Public Sphere: Transnationalizing the Public Sphere

“…4. Black Public Sphere Collective (1995), Brooks-Higginbotham (1993), Eley (1995), Gole (1997), Landes (1988), James (1999), Rendall (1999), Ryan (1990Ryan ( , 1995, Soysal (1997), Young (1987), Warner (2002). 5.…”

A vueltas con las dos esferas. Una revisión historiográfica

“…14 De hecho, Jane Rendall escribió en 1999 que las historiadoras británicas habían empezado a tener en cuenta la concepción de Kerber de las dos esferas como metáfora, pero quedaba mucho por investigar todavía al respecto. Rendall (1999): 483. 15 Pateman (1994): 331, 332.…”

Mary Malone's Lessons: A Narrative of Citizenship in Federation Australia

“…12 Women could also claim a public role through religious citizenship -and Rendall has criticised Habermas's 'highly secularised version of the public sphere', paying 'very little attention to the understanding of religious identities'. 13 Allen, Holton and Mackinnon also noted a general historiographical absence, 'the significant neglect of the spiritual life of women in the late modern period and, more particularly, the limited recognition of how religious belief may have informed women's views of the world and their social and political activism'. 14 Recent scholarship has addressed the neglect of women's religious citizenship, including the participation of women in the Australian churches and religious orders, and the interplay of subjectivity and public activism.…”