The woman question

'The woman question', which is translated from the French term querelle des femmes (literally, 'dispute of women') refers both to an intellectual debate from the 1400s to the 1700s on the nature of women and feminist campaigns for social change after the 1700s.Another poet, Sarah Fyge Field Egerton, appears to have written The Female Advocate (1686) – at age 14! – in reply to the 'late satire on women' quoted for its obscenity; Judith Drake penned An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696); and women of low and high station continued the polemic in the eighteenth century. – Joan Kelly, 'Early Feminist Theory and the Querelle des Femmes. 'The woman question', which is translated from the French term querelle des femmes (literally, 'dispute of women') refers both to an intellectual debate from the 1400s to the 1700s on the nature of women and feminist campaigns for social change after the 1700s. While the French phrase querelle des femmes deals specifically with the Renaissance period, 'the woman question' in English (or in corresponding languages) is a phrase usually used in connection with a social change in the later half of the 19th century, which questioned the fundamental roles of women in Western industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, and Russia. Issues of women's suffrage, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, property rights, legal rights, and medical rights, and marriage dominated cultural discussions in newspapers and intellectual circles. While many women were supportive of these changing roles, they did not agree unanimously. Often issues of marriage and sexual freedom were most divisive. The querelle des femmes or 'woman question' originally referred to a broad debate from the 1400s to the 1700s in Europe regarding the nature of women, their capabilities, and whether they should be permitted to study, write, or govern in the same manner as men. Both in the scholarly and popular sphere, authors criticized and praised women's natures, arguing for or against their capacity to be educated in the same manner as men. As classical Aristotelianism held that women are incapable of reason, many argued that women's nature prevented them from higher learning. As the debate developed, some agreed that men were not naturally more intelligent than women – but argued that the female nature also prevented them from taking higher learning seriously. In addition, there was great controversy over Classical notions of women as inherently defective, in which 'defenders of women' like Christine de Pizan and Mary Wollstonecraft attempted to refute attacks against women as a whole. While this debate was deeply important to some of those who wrote in support of or against women, participation in the querelle des femmes was also an intellectual exercise for many authors with less personal significance. A resurgence in the debate over the nature and role of women are illustrated by the Romantic movement's exploration in fiction and drama (and opera) of the nature of 'man', of human beings as individuals and as members of society. Conflict between women's prescribed roles, their own values, and their perceptions of self are prominent in such works as Die Walküre, Effi Briest, Madame Bovary, Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, A Doll's House, and Hedda Gabler. Each of these addresses women's emotional, social, economic, and religious lives, highlighting the ways in which 'the woman question' had disrupted notions of a static nature which all women share. The term was first used in France: the querelle des femmes (literally, 'dispute of women'). From 1450 into the years that witnessed the beginning of the Reformation, institutions controlled by the Catholic Church, had come into question. Secular states had begun to form in early modern Europe, and the feudal system was overtaken by centralized governments. This disruption extended to the relationships between men and women, and the Renaissance created a contraction of individual freedom for women, unlike men. These changes were justified through a number of arguments which referred to the inherent nature of women as subordinate to men. On one side of the quarrel, many argued that women were inferior to men because man was created by God first, and were therefore stronger and more important. Also, much of Christianity, throughout the ages, has viewed women as the Daughters of Eve, the original temptress responsible for humanity being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Augustine in particular understood women as having souls that were 'naturally more seductive', and emphasized their 'powerful inborn potential to corrupt'. Religious justifications were not the only sources of information regarding woman's nature. As Renaissance humanism developed, there was great interest in returning to classical Greek and Roman philosophy. Classical philosophy held that women were inferior to men at a physical level, and this physical inferiority made them intellectually inferior as well. While the extent of this inferiority was hotly debated by the likes of Christine de Pizan and Moderata Fonte, women continued to be understood as inherently subordinate to men, and this was the basis for preventing women from attending universities or participating in the public sphere. The 'defenders of women' on one side of the debate, according to Joan Kelly, 'pointed out that the writings of the literate and the learned were distorted by what we now call sexism.' They pointed out that accounts of women's deeds and nature were almost entirely written by men, many of whom had reasons to speak poorly of women. These writers, who were referred to as 'ladies' advocates' by the 17th and 18th centuries, promoted an empirical approach, which would measure the deeds and capabilities of women without bias. These arguments did not always insist that women were individuals, as modern feminists would argue, but often simply attempted to defend the 'nature' of women from slander.