Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- one The gender politics of ‘bluestocking philosophy’
- two Gender and the politics of the public sphere
- three ‘Uncompromising politics’: Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay
- four Women writers: setting the terms of the debate
- five The role of social movements leading to the emergence of women public intellectuals
- six Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (1)
- seven Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (2)
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
four - Women writers: setting the terms of the debate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- one The gender politics of ‘bluestocking philosophy’
- two Gender and the politics of the public sphere
- three ‘Uncompromising politics’: Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay
- four Women writers: setting the terms of the debate
- five The role of social movements leading to the emergence of women public intellectuals
- six Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (1)
- seven Contemporary women public intellectuals: the United States (2)
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
Bookish women who flaunt their erudition are singled out for attack, as they were in most modernist writings on women. Animus against learned women particularly those displaying their wisdom in print was a long-standing feature of British intellectual life that few Enlightenment writers sought to challenge. …
[U]ntil recently historians of gender were agreed in depicting the eighteenth century as a time of hardening gender divisions, a period when men and women's lives bifurcated into separate spheres. But closer examination of the evidence, by among others, Amanda Vickery, Margaret Hunt, Linda Colley and Olwen Hutton – shows that far from becoming more entrenched, by the second half of the century, the boundaries separating men and women were … unstable and becoming more so. (Taylor, 2005: 39)
Introduction
As indicated in previous chapters of the book, many women in the Bluestocking Circle were established writers in their own right in the 18th century. Other writers, while associated with the bluestockings, were not seen as part of the bluestockings. All contributed to the emergence of women as public intellectuals. Interestingly, the personal (private) and public (political) intersected in their lives quite profoundly and impacted on their writing. This chapter explores the idea of the bluestockings and other writers and how they were partially enfranchised by the expansion of print culture in the 18th century.
Women writers in the 17th and 18th centuries
In the 18th century, women throughout Europe in large numbers became involved in an expansive world of learning and engaged in the public exchange of ideas. Hesse (2005a: 259) points out that ‘the number of women writers in France trebled to over 300 in print in the revolutionary decade alone’. In addition, Goodman (1995a) comments that ‘The number of women publishing in the German speaking states quadrupled over the course of the eighteenth century, provoking Friedrich Schiller to write to Goethe in 1797 that he was “truly astounded how our women today are capable … of creating themselves as artful writers”.’
Interestingly, Hesse (2005a) expands on the range of institutional contexts where women were represented and in which they articulated their views.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Women, Politics and the Public Sphere , pp. 49 - 66Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2019