A Woman Who Defends All The Persons Of Her Sex: Selected Philosophical and Moral Writings (review)

Part of the excellent The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series, this volume contributes to the array of early modern female authors recently rediscovered by scholars. Gabrielle Suchon (1623-1703) is acclaimed as the first female philosopher whose body of work is devoted exclusively to the study of women. Her work is of interest both to scholars of French philosophy and the history of the discipline, as well as those who work on early female authors and the querelle des femmes. The two texts excerpted here are Suchon's Treatise on Ethics and Politics (1693) and On the Celibate Life Freely Chosen, or Life Without Commitments (1700). The Treatise proposes that women are inherently intelligent and reasonable, and addresses three "deprivations" to which women are subject: of freedom, of knowledge, and of authority (74). On the Celibate Life creates a "third way" for women besides marriage or the convent: becoming a "Neutralist," that is, living the life of the mind, free of the obligations and restrictions of the other two paths (229). Between 1988 and 2002, four sections of the Treatise were published in French (ed. Sévérine Auffret), but no complete modern French edition and no other English translations exist. Stanton and Wilkin provide a full table of contents for both of Suchon's works; they include approximately one-fifth of the Treatise and slightly less of On the Celibate Life here.

The translation is fluid and highly readable, once the reader adjusts to the awkward but linguistically justified use of the term "person of the sex" for "woman" (Suchon uses the admittedly sexist seventeenth-century term le sexe or les personnes du sexe for women, but she also uses the universal feminine la personne for human). In the introduction and prefaces, the editors do a remarkable job of situating Suchon as a pro-woman author in the context of seventeenth-century philosophy, especially in light of feminist critics' revision of the category. The editors question Joan Kelly's notion that the querelle des femmes remained static over time, claiming that Suchon's work illustrates the effect of sociocultural and political changes on the querelle. For example, Suchon's argument for women draws support from the "Ancient" side of the Ancients vs. Moderns debate, rejects marriage and endorses the freedom of widowhood, supports female education and self-education, and values celibacy and solitude. Above all, Suchon's work stands out because, as the editors note, it "provides, as no other pro-woman work of the early modern period does, a justification for [women's] advancement that is grounded in the thought of Aristotle and the theology of the Catholic Church" (65).

The translation itself is supported by extensive footnoting, providing both translations of Suchon's marginalia and explanatory notes on figures and passages mentioned in the text. Suchon cites a number of male authors in her Treatise, including François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Boileau, and Saint Augustine, but refuses to recognize writing on women by women, with the exception of Madeleine de Scudéry's Illustrious Women, perhaps assuming that her brother, George, authored this text. The editors state that Suchon "seems to negate the entire body of pro-woman writers of the querelle des femmes, from Christine de Pizan to Marguerite Buffet" (14) at the same time that she is clearly hoping to convince other women to educate themselves and contribute to their own defense.

Suchon is truly an exceptional figure in the seventeenth-century: an author and autodidact, a former nun with no male protector or patron, a philosopher living outside of Paris (she wrote these works near Dijon) with no salon affiliation, who reveals herself in her text as a woman. She occupies a unique space among female authors, one who seems worthy...