Women philosophers and writers at the time of the Enlightenment faced many adversities and hardships because many men did not believe they had the same intellectual aptitude than that of male philosophical figures. A few women managed to become successful renowned philosophers. Jeanne Francoise Julie Adélaide Bernard is a prominent example of one of them. Born the daughter of a chief law officer, she was the ideal suitress - beautiful, well mannered, educated to the uppermost extent, skilled in many arts, and held her own nobility title. By the age of only fifteen, she was married to Jacques Rose Récamier and began hosting salons within the following years at Abbaye-aux-Bois. Salons provided a place for women and men to discuss a variety of subjects in political, social, or economic matters.
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They were the hostesses of the salons, deciding which topics were going to be discussed and when, as well as structuring the conversations that went on. Bernard quickly became an active participant herself, involved in discussing different opinions on literature and political subtopics with other philosophers, men and women. A philosopher, writer, and supporter of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft was another accomplished woman. She wrote many books during her lifetime on several subjects. The most famous of her writings was A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. It is considered to be one of the first pro-feminist novels, in which she argued that education was essential for women to be better wives to their husbands and to be able to educate their own children. She also made an argument in her novel that rebuts the main belief of Rousseau’s, natural and social inequality, stating that women are not naturally inferior to men. It only appears that way because many women are deprived an education by
They were the hostesses of the salons, deciding which topics were going to be discussed and when, as well as structuring the conversations that went on. Bernard quickly became an active participant herself, involved in discussing different opinions on literature and political subtopics with other philosophers, men and women. A philosopher, writer, and supporter of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft was another accomplished woman. She wrote many books during her lifetime on several subjects. The most famous of her writings was A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. It is considered to be one of the first pro-feminist novels, in which she argued that education was essential for women to be better wives to their husbands and to be able to educate their own children. She also made an argument in her novel that rebuts the main belief of Rousseau’s, natural and social inequality, stating that women are not naturally inferior to men. It only appears that way because many women are deprived an education by