Early Modern Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment From Witches to Wives… Early Modern Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Limiting Options Joan Kelly Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance” Return to classical texts and teaching Classical Values in the Protestant Reformation Increasing value of domestic roles

1 Timothy 2:11-12 A woman should learn in silence and full submission 1 Timothy 2:11-12 A woman should learn in silence and full submission.  I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man.  She must keep silent.

Ephesians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 Wives, be submissive to your husbands as to the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church, so is the husband the head of his wife.  For man did not come from woman, but woman from man.  Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for man.

Mary and Eve

Witchcraft Persecutions (and Deaths) Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) anomie

Changing Philosophies? Rene Descartes (1596-1650) New philosophy Cogito ergo sum Cartesian dualism Francois Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723)

Margaret Cavendish (1661-1717) Radical Feminism? Margaret Cavendish (1661-1717) Utopian visions of equality Equality theoretically possible but culturally unlikely Mary Astell (1661-1731) Advocated absolute necessity of education for women

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) Response to J-J Rousseau (1712-1778) Necessity of equal education for men and women ACCORDING TO THEIR CLASS Advocates co-education

Realities… Women barred from most formal avenues of education Women also often barred from publishing (unless with her husband’s permission)

And Yet… Salons