Women's Epistemology: A Feminist Philosophy Programme

Introduction

The philosophical discussion of the nature of the female mind — and specifically the epistemology of women — has been universally debated for as long as recorded words have existed. What is the nature of God? What is the nature of Man? And then, following shortly thereafter: What is the nature of Woman? It is no secret that most of the first recorded philosophers were men; in fact, this remains largely true today. To many, this fact explains the inherent misogyny associated with epistemology and its relationship to women.

Without the insight of women — a perspective voiced by many but not always widely known — the internal workings of the female mind remained a mystery shaped by the proprietary circumstances of women's allowable voice. It is within the context of the late eighteenth century that we begin to see real feminist voices speak out against the stifling assumptions governing women's lives and minds.

The education of women has therefore historically been based on the idea that society is better served by women embracing their "true nature" — meaning their non-aggressive and nurturing characteristics. The essence of woman, or that which makes her different from — and, to many, opposite to — man, required an attainment of knowledge restricted to her role as dutiful wife.¹ For many, if not all, feminists, the most basic necessity for women, and therefore for society at large, was the full realization of women's abilities through equal education — an education that went far beyond that of Sophie, the docile and pleasing support figure in Rousseau's Emile.²

Though there are those who came before her — most notably Christine de Pizan in the very early Renaissance³ — Mary Wollstonecraft is widely regarded as the mother of feminist demands for equal education. Wollstonecraft chided men, society, and women alike for allowing women's abilities to remain unrealized through a trifling education that left women with only enough knowledge to serve their families and to engender romantic thoughts.

This work establishes, through the analysis of keystones of feminist — and what some would call anti-feminist — writing, a demonstration of the understanding of the epistemological programme of mastery. It develops a line of thought that traces the evolution of the idea of female knowledge: first through some of the main works associated with the early demands for equal educational attainment, and then through modern ideas associated with feminism and philosophy.

The epistemological programme of mastery and its associated source works develop an interesting philosophical and rhetorical argument. It is through the old ideals of mastery — the mastery of self by men, and the mastery of women by men — that women were to be educated and to obtain knowledge. Yet, through the reasoning of many feminist thinkers, women are required by their very capacity to develop knowledge to better their own lives and society as a whole. Whether through family — particularly a woman's ability to educate her children beyond their formative years — or through simple self-improvement, the necessity of full intellectual development for a group that constitutes more than fifty percent of the population in most countries is recognized as integral to modern thought.

A careful analysis of Rousseau's Emile, as it pertains to the development of the female mind and its limitations, reveals the foundational assumptions against which feminist thinkers would later argue. In Emile, Sophie is conceived not as an autonomous individual but as the ideal complement to Emile — a woman whose education is defined entirely by his needs and aspirations. As Rousseau and Bloom note in the introduction to Emile, the ideal woman "will complete him without alienating him," participating in the idea he has formed of her rather than possessing an independent will or intellect of her own.²

The Epistemological Programme of Mastery

This construction of female education as inherently subordinate and instrumental — oriented toward pleasing and sustaining the male subject — provided one of the clearest targets for feminist epistemological critique. It is against precisely this model of limited, role-bound knowledge that subsequent thinkers, from Wollstonecraft onward, directed their most forceful arguments.

Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, eloquently establishes the shortcomings of the accepted "female" education of her time. As she writes: "Only 'absolute in loveliness,' the portion of rationality granted to woman is indeed very scanty; for, denying her genius and judgment, it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect."⁴ Wollstonecraft's argument rests on the conviction that a society which denies women the full development of their rational faculties diminishes not only women themselves but the whole of civilization.

For Wollstonecraft, the problem was not simply one of opportunity but of cultural expectation: women had been educated to be pleasing rather than capable, ornamental rather than rational. Her demand was not merely for access to schooling but for a fundamental reconception of what female education should be and do — a call that would echo through feminist thought for centuries to come.

Rousseau and the Limits of Female Education

Moving into the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex called for an end to the idea of women as the "second sex" — a strong summons to women to challenge the boundaries of their own station in life. De Beauvoir's conclusion captures the complexity of the problem: "The quarrel will go on as long as men and women fail to recognize each other as equals; that is to say, as long as femininity is perpetuated as such... the truth is that if the vicious circle is so hard to break, it is because the two sexes are each the victim at once of the other and of itself."⁵

De Beauvoir thus moved the epistemological discussion beyond the question of formal education and into the domain of existential freedom. Women's access to knowledge was not simply a matter of school curricula; it was bound up with the deeper question of whether women could achieve authentic selfhood in a society that persistently defined them in relation to men. Her work demanded that women themselves refuse the dream of submission and claim the full exercise of their liberty.

Jennifer Mather Saul's introductory work attempts to dissect the impact that philosophical ideals of the female mind have had upon the modern world, examining discrimination and other contemporary issues facing women — including sexual harassment, abortion, and the "different voice" attributed to women through both real communication differences and assumptions made by listeners. Saul's analysis demonstrates that the old philosophical constructions of female intellectual inferiority have not simply disappeared; rather, they persist as structural residues in modern social and institutional life.

Conclusion

De Beauvoir, S. The Second Sex.

Saul, J. Feminism: Issues and Arguments.

Hornsby, J., and M. Fricker. Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy.

Rousseau, J., and A. Bloom. Emile: Or, On Education. New York: Basic Books, 1979.