Louise Dupin's Work on Women

Abstract The Work on Women is the French Enlightenment’s most in-depth feminist analysis of inequality—and its most neglected one. Louise Dupin argues that marriage—the foundation of society according to early modern political philosophers—is founded on an abusive contract that enriches one party and impoverishes the other. Unlike her forebear François Poulain de la Barre, Dupin shows how modern French jurisprudence gradually disenfranchised women, and she links their subjection in marriage to the development of the absolutist French state. Through the psychological insights of the French moralists, Dupin shows how masculine vanity (sexism) distorts knowledge by aggrandizing men and diminishing women. Even the most reputable scientists incorporate old notions of women’s weakness into new theories of the body, while historians denigrate female rulers or erase them altogether. Dupin spares no sarcasm for men’s self-aggrandizement, but trivial talk is not idle in its effects, as men reinforce their social dominance through casual misogyny in the salon and the bedroom. Dupin advocates for meaningful education for girls, but insists that the upbringing of boys, which teaches them entitlement, must also be reformed. This first-ever edition of selected translations of the Work on Women explains the construction of Dupin’s massive project, including the role of her secretary and research assistant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It contextualizes Dupin’s life, the intellectual traditions she engages with, and the philosophers she critiques through annotations and robust introductions to each of four sections: science, history and religion, law, education and mores.