Revisiting Tocqueville’s American Woman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6352580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christine Dunn Henderson (0000-0002-2456-800X, Singapore Management University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 767-789 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00905917231167092 |
| OpenAlex | W4367323693 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 18 |
This paper revisits Tocqueville’s famous portrait of the American female, which begins with assertions of her equality to males but ends with her self-cloistering in the domestic sphere. Taking a cue from Tocqueville’s extended sketch of the “faded” pioneer wife in “A Fortnight in the Wilderness” and drawing connections to Tocqueville’s criticisms of the division of industrial labor, I argue that the American girl’s ostensibly free choice to remove herself from public life is not an act of freedom. Rather, it is a manifestation of a particular type of unfreedom that reveals underappreciated connections between the two great dangers about which Democracy in America warns: tyrannical majoritarianism and soft despotism. My argument that the girl’s choice to withdraw from public life is coerced rather than free thus highlights the nonpolitical sources of oppression that exist within democratic societies. The paper concludes by raising questions about the need for coercion within Tocquevillian democracy and the implications of this for Tocqueville’s “new” political science—indeed, for his liberalism more generally
Argument (complex analysis · Art history · Coercion (linguistics · Democracy · Liberalism · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Public sphere · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Tocqueville between Two Worlds
Sour Grapes
Journal of Applied Philosophy
Analyzing Oppression
Awakening to Race
Adaptive Preferences and Women's Empowerment
Contesting Conformity
Beyond the “Formidable Circle”
Reconsidering Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Tocqueville's American Woman and “The True Conception of Democratic Progress
Tocqueville as Critical Race Theorist
Aristocracy in America
The Unthinkable and the Unthought
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |