Letter Writing and the Emergence of Gendered Subjectivity in Eighteenth-Century France

Bibliographic Data

ID9337652
AuthorsDena Goodman (0000-0002-4963-0463, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume17
Issue2
Pages9-37
Publication date2005-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of women's history (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1042-7961 • E-ISSN: 1527-2036
PublisherBinghamton University (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jowh.2005.0020
OpenAlexW2045958431
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited18

This article takes up the story of the female subject abandoned by Habermas in a less than hospitable public sphere. Through an analysis of letters written by Geneviève Randon de Malboissière (1746-1766) and Marie-Jeanne (Manon) Phlipon (1754-1793), it reintroduces privateness into our discussion of what it means to become a modern female subject, while introducing notions of subjectivity, practice, and construction into our understanding of the relationship of women to the public sphere. I argue that letter-writing women became conscious of themselves as modern, gendered subjects in the gap between a common experience of privateness and the differential positions defined by gender in the public sphere

Epistemology · Feminism · Political science · Public sphere · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subjectivity · Gender Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment