Agenda

This workshop aims to explore Renaissance and early modern accounts of the genesis of gender inequality. Contributions are welcome that examine how feminist writings explained the emergence of gender-based injustice and patriarchal oppression against women and other non-hegemonic genders. Were these thought to arise from a difference in temperament? From the preeminence of a particular passion over others? From a gendered mauvaise éducation? From disparities of strength that escalated into political domination? The workshop also invites reflection on canonical political philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and others, whose theories of natural rights and the social contract implicitly addressed, redefined, and, in some cases legitimized a gendered (unequal) distribution of power, providing a critical backdrop for later feminist analyses of the sexual contract. Moreover, while some feminist authors denounced patriarchal tyranny and male-imposed subordination of women, other Enlightenment thinkers expressed optimism regarding the historical improvement of women’s living conditions through the progress of “civilization.” This tension reveals at least two contrasting views of gender inequality: one seeing it as emerging with societal organization and intensifying as the latter developed, the other as a vestige of a primitive state that modern civilization may progressively correct.

Presenters are invited to explore the conceptual transfers, refutations, and critical appropriations that occurred between canonical and non-canonical authors, thus tracing the impact of feminist philosophical literature in political thought at the time and the dialogues that shaped Renaissance and early modern debates on gender, power, and equality.

Programme attached. To participate, please fill out the registration form or contact the organizer, Natalia Zorrilla Sirlin, to obtain the Zoom link (nat.sirlin@unive.it).

This workshop is organized by the research project HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01 “GYNODICY: Gender-Egalitarian Fictions of Origin in European Philosophical Culture (1673-1751)” (PI Natalia Zorrilla Sirlin, GA n. 101106239), with financial support from Horizon Europe, as well as the British Society for the History of Philosophy and the European Society of Early Modern Philosophy.