Reinventing Woman’s Nature: Early Modern Feminism and Its Roots – Day 1

Register to attend in person in Royce 306.
Register to attend online with Zoom.

Challenges to inferiorizing conceptions of women’s nature that grew in prominence in the 16^th and 17^th centuries should be seen not just as applications of changing philosophical conceptions of nature under the rise of mechanical philosophy, but as helping to shape those reconceptualizations. Through their polemical writings in defence of women, their rejection of histories written by men that excluded or skewed the contributions of women, in their own philosophical treatises and correspondence with male philosophers, feminists, including some feminist men, helped to shape a conception of human nature and virtue that exalted both women and men equally. These texts contain not just critiques of misogynistic theorising about the natures and vices of women aimed at raising the consciousness of women and challenging the authority of men, but deliberate proposals for rethinking social structures—the structure of communities, the family, and women’s political status and role in the State. Of note is the way in which feminists of the period recognised, therefore, that theorising about human nature could not succeed in isolation from a reimagining of the kind of social structures in which it was possible for all humans, men and women included, to flourish. An examination of what makes a thing human could not, in other words, be separated from the question of what it would take to make men and women equal.

This conference is interested in exploring these connections between theorising about women’s nature and theorising about the kind of society that promotes sexual equality. It covers the contributions of feminists from English, French, and Italian traditions, as well as the philosophical transitions that inspired them—Humanism, Cartesianism, and shifts in virtue theory, including challenges to masculinist assumptions about heroic virtues and dignity. The conference will in this way shed light on the extent to which feminist theorising in the period contained an agenda for social change, and thus to its place in the history of feminism as a social movement.

Organized by Professors Calvin Normore (UCLA), Deborah Brown (University of Queensland), Jacqueline Broad (Monash University), and Marguerite Deslauriers (McGill University).

Register to attend in person in Royce 306.
Register to attend online with Zoom.