The Failings of Rousseau's Ideals of Domesticity and Sensibility

Abstract

ROUSSEAU'S VIEWS ON WOMEN have long been the subject of discussion and debate. All his major works deal in one way or another with the nature, role, and education of women and with the broader issues of sexual politics -the analysis of gender differences and of power relations between the sexes. The view of women that emerges from the study of Rousseau's writings is a complex and contradictory one, full of ambivalence and discontinuities. It is not surprising then that his views have given rise to widely divergent interpretations among both his contemporaries and our own. With the burgeoning of feminist literary and social criticism in the past two decades, Rousseau's sexual politics have become the subject of renewed interest and controversy. Although some critics consider Rousseau's views on women a particularly striking (and unambiguous) example of misogyny and paternalism,' other scholars have defended him against such charges, arguing that his views are con-