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.

The Epistemological Programme of Mastery

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.

Rousseau and the Limits of Female Education

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

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.

Conclusion

Without a clear understanding of the philosophical history of ideas about women and their place in society — along with a recognition of just how recently these ideas held sway — it would be difficult to appreciate the need for continued feminist scholarship. It is through a greater understanding of self that the individual develops his or her place within society; and as women are clearly recognized today as individuals capable of, and responsible for, the betterment of self, the old ideas must be challenged. The cultural collective memory must be both remembered and transcended, within the same philosophical line of thought.

¹ "The Aristotelian approach to sexual matters offers a relatively obvious target to feminist criticism. Aristotle holds that the essence of a thing is to be identified with its function, or with what it is 'for' from the point of view of some organic whole to which it belongs (Politics 1253a20–25; cf. de Anima 422b28–30). This identification rests on the assumption that 'Nature does nothing in vain' (Pol. 1256b21), and hence that in order to understand a thing we must first come to see the point or purpose of it." Within this frame of thought, women's essence includes only her purpose — defined, in the context of society and relationships, as her procreative role and the support of it. Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, p. 3.

² "He has an overwhelming need for another, but that other must be the embodiment of the ideal of beauty, and his interest in her partakes of the disinterestedness of the love of the beautiful... This woman will, to use Platonic language, participate in the idea he has of her. He will recognize in her his own highest aspirations. She will complete him without alienating him. If Emile and Sophie can be constituted as a unit and individualism thereby surmounted, then Rousseau will have shown how the building blocks of a society are formed." Rousseau and Bloom, introduction to Emile, p. 22.

³ Christine de Pizan (1365–c. 1430), author of The Book of the City of Ladies among other influential texts, was a key figure in what is considered the first feminist debate — an epistolary exchange revolving around a poem called the Romance of the Rose and the Renaissance rejection of the chivalric ideal through an attack on the character of women. In The Book of the City of Ladies and its sequel The Treasury of the City of Ladies, Pizan repeatedly bolstered the reputations of women in history and urged the women of her day to acquire whatever knowledge they might need to govern their own lives.

⁴ Wollstonecraft, M. Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter IV.

⁵ De Beauvoir, S. Conclusion to The Second Sex.

Wollstonecraft, M. Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

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.