The Moral Sex
Woman's Nature in the French Enlightenment
Lieselotte Steinbrügge author Pamela E Selwyn translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:5th Oct '95
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book deals with a question that currently has a great deal of resonance among historians, feminists, and literary scholars: How was the nature of women redefined and debated during the French Enlightenment? Instead of treating the Enlightenment in the usual manner, as a challenge to orthodox ideas and social conventions, Lieselotte Steinbrügge interprets it as a deviation from a position staked out in the seventeenth century, namely, "the mind has no sex." In breaking with that view, the philosophes shifted the debate to categories like morality and sensitivity and took up economic issues as well. They inadvertently backed women into the corner of domesticity, where middle-class women remained for some time to come.
A rich and scientifically ambitious discourse on gender ... The narrative of The Moral Sex is simply and economically outlined. * Times Literary Supplement *
it is a useful aid to a deeper understanding of Laquer's Making Sex ... Steinbrügge's essay concisely and effectively fills in the background and should be compulsory reading for anyone working on Enlightenement medicine. In many respects this is a pearl of a book ... it is a valuable addition to Enlightenment studies tout court. * Laurence Brockliss, Magdalen College, Oxford, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 10, No. 1 '97 *
ISBN: 9780195094930
Dimensions: 208mm x 140mm x 12mm
Weight: 197g
168 pages