## 1. Life and Works



We know relatively little about the life of Francois Poulain
(or Poullain) de la Barre. No correspondence or accounts by his
contemporaries have survived. What we know has to be reconstructed
from occasional surviving official documents and from supposedly
autobiographical remarks in his writings. Accounts of Poulain's
life rely on archival research done in particular by Marie-Louise
Stock (1961), Madeleine Alcover (1981), and Siep Stuurman (2004).



Poulain was born in Paris in 1648, as the third child to wealthy
Catholic parents. As many younger sons he was destined for a church
career and he earned his bachelor's degree in theology at
Sorbonne in 1666. This lower degree was generally considered
sufficient for priesthood, but Poulain did not at this point of his
life seek to be ordained and this decision, though temporary, is often
connected with his growing interest in Cartesian philosophy (Stuurman
2004: 30). In his second main work *De l'education des
dames* [On the Education of Ladies] (1674), a set of five
conversations between a Cartesian teacher, a young man and two young
women, Poulain describes how the teacher Stasimachus became a follower
of Rene Descartes' philosophy. Stasimachus tells his
young interlocutors how, one day, when he found 



> 
> 
> all the sciences of the Schools particularly distasteful, by a great
> stroke of luck I allowed myself to be taken off by a friend to hear a
> Cartesian lecturing on a subject concerning the human body. (TTen 245;
> TTfr 281) 
> 
> 
> 



Fed on Scholastic prejudices against Cartesian philosophy, Stasimachus
was initially suspicious and then 



> 
> 
> astonished to hear nothing but what was clear and intelligible, to
> realize that [the speaker] was reasoning on the basis of principles
> that were so simple and so true that I could not fail to agree with
> them. (TTen 245; TTfr 281-282) 
> 
> 
> 



As Stuurman points out, this description is a "streamlined
conversion story", of a type often repeated by followers of
Descartes' philosophy during the second half of the seventeenth
century (Stuurman 2004: 35). Stasimachus' conversion must not be
read as Poulain's autobiography, but we have strong grounds to
assume that Poulain became interested in Cartesian philosophy while
still a student and that his interest was connected to attending
public lectures, such as those held in Paris by the Cartesian Jacques
Rohault (Stuurman 2004: 43).



Scholars also agree that after leaving university, Poulain was
teaching literature and a textbook on translating Latin into French,
published anonymously in 1672, has been attributed to him (Stock 1961:
19-20; Welch 2002a: 9). In the following year he published
*De l'egalite des deux sexes* [On the
Equality of the Two Sexes] (1673), the first and most widely known of
his three feminist treatises. One year later it was followed by *De
l'education des dames* and in the next year by *De
l'excellence des hommes, contre l'egalite
des sexes* [On the Excellence of Men, against the Equality of the
Sexes] (1675). Despite its name the third treatise continues
Poulain's defense of equality between the sexes by overturning
his rhetorically presented arguments on the behalf of the excellence
of men. This treatise is less Cartesian than the two earlier ones and
more engaged with theological arguments. In this respect it resembles
earlier treatises participating in the Renaissance *querelle des
femmes*, the debate about the superiority of women versus men,
such as Cornelius Agrippa's *De nobilitate et praecellentia
foeminei sexus* [On the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female
Sex] (1509/1529).



At some point after publishing his three feminist treatises, Poulain
returned to theology and he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1679.
His decision to take up a church career after having written treatises
heavily critical of Scholastic philosophy might seem odd. There is no
doubt that Poulain used Cartesian arguments as a basis for his
feminist claims and that he was critical of Scholasticism, but we must
also note that his third treatise is in many respect a reconciliation
between his feminism and theology. When reconstructing Poulain's
opinions we must be careful not to identify him too closely with the
character Stasimachus. As Carol Pal has argued in the case of the
friendship between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, with strong
Cartesian sympathies, and Anna Maria van Schurman, who was in many
respects a Scholastic thinker, it was not unusual that
seventeenth-century intellectuals combined elements from the old and
the new philosophy (Pal 2012: 250-254). It is quite possible
that Poulain was less militant a convert to Cartesianism than his
character Stasimachus.



After being ordained Poulain served as a curate in two parishes in
Picardy, first in the medium-sized village La Flamengrie, from where
he was transferred to the small village Versigny in 1685, possibly as
the result of some disciplinary measure (Stuurman 2004:
239-240). In Picardy Poulain witnessed the persecution of
Protestants and this is often interpreted as paving the way for his
own conversion from Catholicism to Calvinism. He left his parish in
1688 and after a short stay in Paris, where his conversion is assumed
to have taken place, he moved to Geneva, where he received the status
of *habitant* in December 1689 (Stuurman 2004: 242-243).
As a resident of Geneva, Poulain continued his earlier career teaching
French and in 1690 he married Marie Ravier (d. 1742), with whom he had
two children, Jean-Charlotte (1690-1716) and Jean-Jacques
(1696-1751), a future Calvinist minister and follower of many of
his father's theological ideas (Welch 2002a: 17-20;
Stuurman 2004: 245-246). Poulain published two more books,
*Essai des remarques particulieres sur la langue
francoise pour la ville de Geneve* [An Essay of
detailed comments about the French language, for the city of Geneva]
(1691), related to his career as a teacher, and *La Doctrine des
Protestans sur la liberte et le droit de lire l'Ecriture
Sainte, etc.* [Protestant Teaching about the Freedom and the Right
to Read the Holy Scriptures, etc.] (1720), developing his mature
theological opinions. He did earn a secure living in his chosen
homeland, though he did not find the religious freedom he appears to
have been hoping for. In 1693, and again in 1696, Poulain was accused
for being a Socinian, an accusation that was related to his
rationalistic approach to theology, which did not draw a strict
distinction between theology and philosophy (Stuurman 2004:
248-249). This affair has been seen as the main reason why
Poulain had to wait until 1708 before he was appointed to a permanent
teaching position at the College de Geneve, a position
that he held until his death in 1723.


## 2. Cartesian Foundations



Poulain's treatises *De l'egalite des
deux sexes* and *De l'education des dames* are
both profoundly influenced by Descartes' philosophy, but in
different ways. In the first treatise Descartes is not mentioned by
name, but Poulain's discussion of the equality between the sexes
draws heavily on his philosophical method as well as his metaphysics.
The second treatise discusses Cartesian philosophy in detail and the
leading character Stasimachus is a proclaimed follower of Descartes,
but the book itself is not as evidently relying on Descartes'
philosophical method. My discussion of Poulain's Cartesian
influences will draw on both treatises and I will first discuss the
role of Cartesian method and then discuss to what extent Poulain
adopted a Cartesian metaphysics.


### 2.1 Descartes' method



At the very beginning of the preface to *De
l'egalite des deux sexes*, Poulain writes that
the



> 
> 
> best idea that may occur to those who try to acquire genuine
> knowledge, if they were educated according to traditional methods, is
> to doubt if they were taught well and to wish to discover the truth
> themselves. As they make progress in this search for truth, they
> cannot avoid noticing that we are full of prejudices, and that it is
> necessary to get rid of them completely in order to acquire clear and
> distinct knowledge. (T1en 119; TTfr
>  53)[1]
> 
> 
> 



This paragraph is an excellent summary of Descartes' method for
the search for truth as it is presented in all his major works. In the
*Discours de la methode*, for example, Descartes writes
that 



> 
> 
> since I now wished to devote myself solely to the search for truth, I
> thought it necessary to [...] reject as if absolutely false
> everything in which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see
> if I was left believing anything that was entirely indubitable. (CSM
> I, 126-127; AT VI, 31-32) 
> 
> 
> 



It is notable that Poulain's reference to the necessity of
getting *completely* rid of prejudices follows the radical
nature of Descartes' doubt and its emphasis on rejecting
*everything* as false, unless it is entirely indubitable.
Poulain is true to Descartes' terminology also at the end of the
cited paragraph, where he refers to certain knowledge as "clear
and distinct". In *Principia philosophiae* (part I,
SS 45), Descartes emphasizes that in order to "serve as the
basis for a certain and indubitable judgment" a perception needs
to "be not merely clear but also distinct" (CSM I, 207; AT
VIIIA, 22). By "clear" he means that "it is present
and accessible to the attentive mind" and in order to be
"distinct" it must, in addition to being clear, be
"so sharply separated from all other perceptions that it
contains within itself only what is clear" (CSM I, 208; AT
VIIIA, 22).



In *De l'education des dames* Poulain extends his
discussion of methodological doubt and attributes this method to
Descartes. The character Stasimachus explains how no other author
"has better discussed prejudice nor countered it more
convincingly" (TTen 242; TTfr 277). The egalitarian aspect of
Descartes' method is also emphasized and Stasimachus points out
that "almost all of us have enough reason and good sense to seek
the truth", which is found when "we have formed clear and
distinct ideas" (ibid.). Poulain's text is a very close
echo of the first paragraph of Descartes' *Discours de la
methode*, where he famously claims that 



> 
> 
> the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the
> false--which is what we properly call 'good sense' or
> 'reason'--is naturally equal in all men. (CSM I, 111;
> AT VI, 2) 
> 
> 
> 



Poulain's take on Descartes' philosophy is explicitly
methodological and he adds that Descartes is to be trusted because he
provides the best "methods and principles" (TTen 242; TTfr
277). Adopting Descartes' method means that one has to
critically examine its author as well as other authors, and
Stasimachus concludes his presentation by emphasizing that



> 
> 
> I am not claiming that Descartes is infallible or that everything he
> proposed is true and unproblematic, or that one has to follow him
> blindly, or that others couldn't find something as good or even
> better than he has left us. All I am saying is that I believe him to
> be one of the most reasonable philosophers we have, whose method is
> the most universal and the most natural, the one that most closely
> conforms to good sense and the nature of the human mind, and the most
> likely to distinguish the true from the false even in the works of the
> one who is their author. (TTen 243; TTfr 278)
> 
> 
> 



In addition to Descartes' method of doubt, Poulain also adopts
his scientific method and his discussion of the order of the sciences,
as it is presented in the preface to the French translation of
*Principia philosophiae* (see also Pellegrin 2013; Reuter 2017:
34-37). Descartes famously compares the whole of philosophy,
which is here understood as including all different forms of
knowledge, to a tree, where the 



> 
> 
> roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging
> from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to
> three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals. (CSM I,
> 186; AT IXB, 14) 
> 
> 
> 



Descartes' metaphor emphasizes the unity of the sciences and
this idea is taken up by Poulain, who replaces the metaphor of a tree
with that of the human body. In *De l'education*
he writes that "there is a necessary relationship and dependence
between all the sciences, quite similar to those between the different
parts of the human body" (TTen 208; TTfr 239).



Poulain puts less emphasis than Descartes on the hierarchical
structure of sciences implied by the original metaphor of a tree, but
he does adopt Descartes' emphasis on physics and in *De
l'egalite* he uses the idea of the unity of
the sciences in order to argue that women are as able as men to master
all forms of knowledge. Here Poulain is arguing against those who
claim that women are unable to hold civil offices and to rule over
others and he points out that these people



> 
> 
> fail to notice that the mind needs only discernment and accuracy in
> all its actions, and that anyone who displays these qualities in one
> context is capable of applying them as easily and in the same way to
> everything else. Morality and social science do not change the nature
> of our actions; the latter always remain physical, [...] Once
> someone understands the laws of motion in natural philosophy, they can
> apply them to all changes and all variations that occur in nature.
> Similarly, if someone has once understood the true principles of the
> social sciences, they do not experience a new challenge when applying
> them to novel situations that occur. (T1en 174; TTfr
> 116-117)
> 
> 
> 



Poulain does not seem to reduce knowledge of morality to knowledge of
physics, but he emphasizes that there is a methodological unity, which
makes it possible to compare the way in which true principles are
applied in the natural and the social sciences. His argument
criticizes the Scholastic tradition in two ways. First, he argues
against the common view (originally presented by Aristotle) that since
women's deliberative faculty lacks sufficient authority, women
have difficulties governing themselves and therefore cannot govern
others (Aristotle, *Politics* 1260a12-14). Second,
Poulain criticizes the idea, dominant among the Scholastics, that
different forms of knowledge require different methods and that
theoretical reasoning does not as such ground practical judgment (see
Aristotle, *Nicomachean Ethics* 1140b1-7, for the
distinction between practical reason (*fronesis*) and
theoretical knowledge). Defenders of women, who, like Christine de
Pizan, wrote within the Aristotelian tradition, found it necessary to
argue separately that women are as capable as men in their practical
judgment as in their theoretical reasoning (see in particular
*Livre de la Cite des Dames* [The Book of the City of
Ladies], 1405, part I, chap. 43). Poulain's argument is novel in
its emphasis on the unity of science, from which it follows that if
women are capable of theoretical reasoning, which was a less
controversial claim, they are also capable of practical judgment. This
argument is directly based on the criticism of Scholastic science that
Descartes develops in the preface to the French translation of
*Principia philosophiae* and which culminates in the idea of
the unity of all the sciences (CSM I, 185-186; AT IXB,
12-14).



In Descartes' metaphor, metaphysics constitutes the roots of the
tree of philosophy and we must therefore assume that one cannot be a
Cartesian philosopher without adopting Descartes' metaphysics.
Poulain did do so, though he was, as we will see in the next section,
less profoundly influenced by it than by Descartes'
philosophical methodology.


### 2.2 Metaphysics



In the second part of *De l'egalite*,
Poulain claims that "the mind has no sex" and loosely
connects his claim to Descartes' dualism (T1en 157-158;
TTfr 99-100). The claim in itself was not new--we find it
already in the theological doctrine of Augustine, who holds that the
rational souls of women and men are equally created in the image of
God (*De trinitate* XII 7.12), and in Poulain's time it had recently been stated,
with strong feminist emphasis, by Marie le Jars de Gournay (G-EMW 65;
G-OC 978). Still, many of Poulain's contemporaries as well as
modern scholars agree that Descartes' dualism strengthened the
idea that the mind has no sex (different positions have been argued by
Hoffmann 1969; Perry 1985; Harth 1992: 81-86; Atherton 1993;
O'Neill 1999 and 2011; Broad 2002: 4-12 and 2017;
Pellegrin 2011: 28-37 and 2019: 568-569; Reuter 2013 and
2019: 38-41; Detlefsen 2017). It might seem surprising that
Poulain does not make more out of Descartes' dualism than he
actually does.



In the passage in question, Poulain points out that if "the mind
is considered in itself, it [...] have the same nature in all
human beings" (T1en 158; TTfr 100). In order to consider the
mind in itself one has to presuppose that it can in some respect be
distinguished from the body, but Poulain does not discuss the
metaphysical nature of the relation between mind and body. Instead he
leaves the discussion of the mind considered in itself behind and
focuses on the mind-body union, which he describes in the following
words:



> 
> 
> It is God who unites the mind with the body of a woman as with that of
> a man, and who unites them by means of the same laws. This union is
> established and maintained by sensations, passions, and acts of the
> will; and since the mind acts in the same way in both sexes, it is
> equally capable of the same things in both of them. (T1en 158; TTfr
> 101)
> 
> 
> 



This description is indeed very close to the description Descartes
gives in the Sixth Meditation, when he examines "what God has
bestowed on me as a combination of mind and body" (CSM II, 57;
AT VII, 82), but whereas Descartes begins this last Meditation by
emphasizing the real distinction between mind and body, according to
which it "is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and
can exist without it" (CSM II, 54; AT VII, 78), Poulain does not
discuss the real distinction between mind and body before he focuses
on their union.



Poulain's focus on the mind-body union is continued in *De
l'education*, where the fourth conversation stages a
detailed discussion of self-knowledge. Here the young Timander, who is
usually a spokesperson of Scholastic views, raises a significantly
Cartesian objection. He points out that 



> 
> 
> it would be easier to begin with the study of the mind. For if it is
> easier for man to know himself and what immediately surrounds him than
> what is remote from him [as has been previously established], by the
> same token it seems that the mind would know itself better than it
> would know the body. (TTen 214; TTfr 246; see also Welch 2002b: 139)
> 
> 
> 
> 



Timander's point resembles Descartes' emphasis in the
Second Meditation, where he begins by examining himself as a thinking
thing (CSM II, 19; AT VII, 28), but rather than following this order
of metaphysical inquiry, Stasimachus points out that though this is
true 



> 
> 
> provided one can separate the mind from the body [...] if we
> consider them a single, interdependent entity [...] I am
> convinced that knowledge of the body should precede that of the mind.
> (TTen 214: TTfr 246) 
> 
> 
> 



Again, Poulain proceeds directly to a study of the mind-body union and
here his reference to the distinction between mind and body is even
more fleeting than in *De l'egalite*.



The lack of any explicit discussion of the soul as a distinct
substance has led Desmond Clarke to argue that Poulain rejected
Descartes' notion of the soul as a substance and held this
notion to be a mere Scholastic residue. According to Clarke, Poulain
defended the view that the 



> 
> 
> union of the body and the soul and their reciprocal interdependence
> was a more fundamental datum of human experience than the speculative
> distinction of the soul as a scholastic substance. (Clarke 2013: 43)
> 
> 
> 
> 



Following the same line of inquiry Marie-Frederique
Pellegrin argues that for Poulain "anthropology is more decisive
than metaphysics" (Pellegrin 2019: 576).



Poulain's emphasis on the embodied aspect of human nature was
not unique among his contemporary Cartesians, on the contrary, he
shares it with Jacques Rohault and Louis de la Forge, for example, who
are both mentioned in his list of suggested readings presented in
*De l'education* (TTen 237; TTfr 272). Some
influence is very likely and Clarke compares Poulain's above
cited account of the mind-body union in *De
l'egalite* with the account de la Forge gives
in his *Traitte de l'Esprit de l'Homme*
[Treatise on the Human Mind] (1666) (T1en 158n45).
Still, we must note that while stressing the union, de la
Forge's account was firmly anchored in substance dualism and his
aim was to address--within a strictly Cartesian
framework--unsolved problems related to the operations of the
mind and the interaction between mind and body (Drieux 2019).



Poulain's unorthodox Cartesianism is most evident when he
describes the relation between individual thoughts and the body. In
*De l'education*, Poulain writes that "all
the actions of the mind [...] depend on the participation of the
body" and a few pages later, less rigorously, that "one
almost never acts without the other" (TTen 213, 223; TTfr 244,
256). These claims overlook the distinction Descartes makes between
the actions and the passions of the mind, according to which passions
depend on the body whereas actions, such as volitions, do not (CSM I,
335; AT XI, 342-343; for more detail see Reuter 2013:
79-82). Poulain does acknowledge the distinction between
volitions and passions in one passage in *De
l'egalite*, where he writes:



> 
> 
> As for the causes that quicken the passions, we can understand their
> workings as soon as we have studied physics sufficiently to understand
> how the things that surround us affect us and influence us, and
> through experience and use how we can yoke our will to them or
> dissociate it from them. (TTen 84; TTfr 102; see also Broad 2017:
> 76)
> 
> 
> 



This passage relies on Descartes' dualism by distinguishing
between the passions, that are dependent on the body, and the will,
that is free to either yoke or dissociate itself. But again there is
no further discussion and Poulain seems to be unaware of the
metaphysical dimension of the distinction he makes.



Poulain does not seem to hold that there is a *necessary*
dependence of mind upon body. He is not explicitly arguing for a
materialist alternative to Descartes' dualism, but rather
emphasizing the interdependence between mind and body, without taking
an explicit stand on what kind of metaphysical foundation this
interaction requires. Poulain was young when he wrote his feminist
treatises and though he was evidently familiar with a wide range of
Cartesian topics, it is possible that he was not very deeply read in
the Cartesian corpus. Compared to other Cartesians such as Rohault, de
la Forge, Nicolas Malebranche, and Antoine Arnauld, Poulain did not
contribute by examining unsolved problems in Descartes' physics
and metaphysics. Instead, his unrivalled contribution lies in his
Cartesian analyses of the moral, political, physical, and metaphysical
relations between the sexes.


## 3. The Subjugation of Women



Poulain's analysis of the subjugation of women combines a
Cartesian criticism of prejudice with a historical analysis of the
origin of these prejudiced opinions.


### 3.1 The role of prejudice



Right at the beginning of the first part of *De
l'egalite*, Poulain compares prejudice
concerning the sexes to other equally persistent, but unjustified
beliefs. First, he points out that apart 



> 
> 
> from a few scholars, everyone thinks that it is indubitable that the
> Sun moves around the Earth, despite the fact that what we observe in
> the revolutions of the days and the years leads those who examine it
> to believe that it is the Earth that moves around the Sun. (T1en 122;
> TTfr 59) 
> 
> 
> 



Second, he refers to people, who imagine that animals are intelligent
beings guided by reason, just 



> 
> 
> like primitive people who suppose that there are little souls inside
> the clocks and machines that they are shown though they know nothing
> about their construction or their inner springs. (T1en 122-123;
> TTfr 59) 
> 
> 
> 



Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, Poulain refers to social
prejudices, which cause people to believe that their own country is
the best, because it is most familiar, and 



> 
> 
> that the religion in which they were reared is the true religion that
> must be followed, even if they may never have thought of examining it
> or comparing it with other religious traditions. (T1en 123; TTfr 60)
> 
> 
> 
> 



These social prejudices also include beliefs concerning wealth and
rank, and Poulain points out that "the unequal distribution of
goods and offices causes many people to conclude that human beings are
not equal to each other" (ibid.).



Poulain's comparisons place his analysis of the relations
between the sexes in the framework of new science, including both
astronomy and mechanistic explanations of the animal body, as well as
in the framework of current ideas about religious freedom and human
equality. He claims that when properly examined, the equality of the
sexes should be as evident as the newly established fact that the
earth moves around the sun.



Poulain continues by emphasizing that when one examines the
foundations of prejudice one finds that these beliefs are based on
mere self-interest and custom. Interestingly, he is also quite aware
that beliefs based on prejudice are more difficult to change than
beliefs based on reason. He points out that when 



> 
> 
> someone's opinion is based only on prejudice, it is incomparably
> more difficult to change their minds than if they had been convinced
> by reasons that seem strong and persuasive to them. (T1en 123; TTfr
> 60) 
> 
> 
> 



People can make mistakes when they think that they have strong
evidence to believe what they believe, but people who make this kind
of mistakes are more prone to change their minds when they encounter
new evidence than people who hold untrue beliefs based on prejudice (for an excellent discussion of Poulain's Cartesian analysis of prejudice, see Schmitter 2018; also Fraisse 1985).
The persistance of prejudice is an important insight, which is still very relevant for
discussions about our "post-truth" society and different forms of populist rhetoric.



When discussing prejudices about the inferiority of women, Poulain
emphasizes that these are particularly difficult to overcome because
they are shared by both men and women. He writes that these beliefs,
though unjustified, seem



> 
> 
> all the more convincing when one considers how women themselves
> tolerate their condition. They accept it as if it were natural to
> them, either because they do not think at all about what they are or
> because, having been born and reared in dependency, they think about
> it in the same way as men. (T1en 126; TTfr 63)
> 
> 
> 



Here Poulain touches upon the important--and also still
relevant--topic of internalized prejudice (also Schmitter 2018, 6-9). The subjugation of
women does not consist only in the political and economic power men
exercise over them, but also in the fact that women internalize their
subjected position and perceive it as natural. In twenty-first
century feminist philosophy this same insight provides the ground for
discussions about the objectification of women (Haslanger 1993;
Langton 2000) as well as about implicit biases and so called
stereotype threat, which can affect the performance of disadvantaged
groups in situations where they identify themselves as inadequate
performers (Saul 2013).



Since subjection is in part based on false self-understanding, Poulain
is very aware that we need true self-knowledge in order to liberate
ourselves. In *De l'egalite* he points out
that "[s]elf-knowledge is absolutely necessary in order to
address [the equality of the sexes] properly" and following his
emphasis on the bodily aspect of the human condition, he adds that
this concerns "especially knowledge of the body" (T1en
155; TTfr 97). In *De l'education*, Poulain
devotes the whole fourth conversation to the topic of self-knowledge
and though he does not in this context explicitly address the question
of the equality of the sexes, he makes several important remarks on
how our self-knowledge is affected by the prejudiced opinions of
others. Stasimachus explains:



> 
> 
> We are prejudiced about nearly everything that exists, and most of all
> about ourselves. We are not only the authors of the prejudice but also
> its theater and its victims. As far as the things that touch us most
> closely are concerned, we immolate ourselves to our ghosts, so to
> speak. [...] Although we are made in a certain way, and nature
> makes us realize that and protests constantly against our own
> imagination, we still try to be the way people tell us we are. (TTen
> 212; TTfr 243)
> 
> 
> 



Poulain's account is remarkably aware of what we would call the
unconscious aspects of our minds and of the difficulties to change our
self-conception even in cases when we consciously know that we are the
victim of prejudice. He was clearly aware of the ongoing French
discussion of self-knowledge, where Neo-Augustinian thinkers such as
Pierre Nicole and Blaise Pascal questioned its possibility, and he
combined a defense of the achievability of self-knowledge against
those who claim that knowing oneself is 



> 
> 
> like moving mountains and that we will never get to the end of it,
> that man is hidden from himself, that there are countless hidden
> recesses of the heart he can never uncover (TTen 211; TTfr 242) 
> 
> 
> 



with a nuanced awareness of the difficulties involved (for a detailed
discussion see Reuter 2017: 44-49).


### 3.2 Historical origins



Poulain's finely tuned analysis of the psychological aspects of
oppression is combined with a robust analysis of the historical origin
of the prejudiced opinion that women are inferior to men. He explains
that we need to trace the prejudiced opinion about women "back
to its origin" and that would



> 
> 
> involve evaluating what was done in earlier times by reference to
> current practices, and judging ancient customs by comparison with
> those that we see developing in our own day. If we had followed that
> rule, we would not have fallen into so many mistakes in innumerable
> judgments. And, in respect of the current condition of women, we would
> have recognized that they were dominated only by the law of the
> strongest, and that it was not because of a lack of natural capacity
> or merit on their part that they failed to share the advantages that
> give men a superior position in society. (T1en 126; TTfr
> 63-64)
> 
> 
> 



According to Poulain, the law of the stronger (*la Loi du plus
fort*) is in several respects arbitrary. He emphasizes that with
the exception for the dependence of children upon their parents,
dependence "is a purely physical or civil relation" and it
should be "considered only as an effect of change, violence, or
custom" (T1en 153; TTfr 95). As argued by Stuurman, Poulain can
have been influenced by Thomas Hobbes' views about the
artificial nature of political power (Stuurman 2004: 177-178).
Inequality is not natural and neither is the male sex oppressive by
nature. Poulain explicitly rejects the idea that men, when they
usurped power over women, were "driven by some hidden
instinct--that is, by a general command of the author of
nature--to act in this way" (T1en 126; TTfr 63). God has
not made men oppressive. From the arbitrary nature of the power
relation between the sexes follows also that "women might have
[favored their sex] had they been in a similar situation" (T1en
152; TTfr 95). Neither sex is by its nature oppressive or
submissive.



Poulain does not deny that men are, on an average, physically stronger
than women or that "the interruptions of pregnancy and its
after-effects reduced the strength of women for periods of time"
and made them dependent on "their husbands'
assistance" (T1en 127; TTfr 65). This was not a problem, though,
as long as "families consisted of just a mother, a father, and a
few small children" but it became problematic when families
expanded into larger units, when household chores became more
diversified and all family members submitted to the rule of the father
(T1en 127-128; TTfr 65).



Poulain is committed to the idea of an original golden age, preceding
the present diversified society, and he emphasizes the idea of
original liberty in particular in his third treatise *De
l'excellence des hommes*, where he also describes the
process through which natural liberty was lost. He explains that
when



> 
> 
> some men took advantage of their strength and their leisure to try to
> subjugate others, the golden age of liberty gave way to an iron age of
> servitude. Self-interest and wealth were so bound together through
> domination that it became impossible not to have to depend on others.
> This combination increased in proportion to the distance from the
> state of innocence and peace, giving rise to greed, ambition, vanity,
> extravagance, idleness, pride, cruelty, tyranny, deceit, schisms,
> wars, chance, worries--in short, all the infirmities of mind and
> body that afflict us. (TTen 313; TTfr 392)
> 
> 
> 



Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau after him, Poulain connects the origins of
inequality to wealth and the dependence on others that follows from an
increasing division of labor. This historical process does not only
give raise to unequal material conditions, it is also the origin of
negative emotions such as greed, pride and cruelty. The tyranny of men
over women has the same historical origin. In *De
l'egalite* Poulain describes how the original
voluntary dependence between husband and wife becomes subjugation when
wars forced women "to accept as husbands unknown strangers who
considered them merely as the most beautiful part of their
booty" (T1en 128; TTfr 66). The commodification of women is
thus, according to Poulain, an integral part of the historical
origin of inequality.



Poulain's understanding of the difference between the original
harmony of mother, father and a few children and the oppression of
women in developed societies is further illuminated by his remarks on
the difference between marriage and political society. In *De
l'excellence* he compares political society and the
"society of marriage [which] is composed only of two persons, of
whom one, therefore, cannot use authority and coercion towards the
other" (TTen 280; TTfr 313). Poulain argues that marriage does
not require a hierarchical division of power because it is "not
founded on fear, but on love" (ibid.). Marriage can thus be
based directly on the natural equality of wife and husband, without
either of them usurping power over the other, whereas a society of
three or more people, where one is "able to join forces with
another to force the third to abide", requires submission to
laws and sovereigns, otherwise people will "be constantly at
war" (ibid). In order to avoid war and tyranny established
through war, political society requires sovereign power, but like
Hobbes, Poulain emphasizes that the right to command 



> 
> 
> does not belong naturally to any one person more than to another,
> since it consists in the voluntary submission of those who give it to
> the one who is vested with it. (ibid.) 
> 
> 
> 



Both marriage and political rule must thus acknowledge that human
beings are naturally equal, even if political society cannot be based
on natural equality in the same direct manner as marriage
can--and was, according to Poulain, during the golden age of
liberty, before the arbitrary subjugation of women.


## 4. The Equality of the Sexes



We have seen that Poulain claims that all human beings are equal, but
how does he argue for the equality of the sexes? We do not know if
Poulain was familiar with Marie de Gournay's treatise
*Egalite des hommes et des femmes* [The Equality
of Men and Women] (1622), but he shares her emphasis on equality based
on the similarity of the sexes. Gournay self-consciously distinguished
herself from earlier participants in the *querelle des femmes*,
who often argued for the superiority of either sex, and emphasizes
that she is "content to make women equal to men, for nature is
also as opposed to superiority as to inferiority in this
respect" (G-EMW 54; G-OC 965; see also Deslauriers 2018).
Whereas Gournay followed Aristotle and argued that the unique form of
the human animal consists in the rational soul, which is the same in
both sexes (G-EMW 65; G-OC 978; also Deslauriers 2019), Poulain
rejected Scholastic philosophy and attempted to ground most of his
arguments on Descartes' philosophy. When we analyze his
discussions of the equality of the sexes, we can distinguish four main
arguments. First, Poulain argues that there is no evidence in favor of
inequality, which is a mere false belief. Second, he argues that women
and men are in all relevant respects mentally and physically similar
and therefor equal. Third, he refers to a normative concept of natural
equality, and finally, he develops a normative demand for equal
opportunity. I have devoted one subsection to each argument.


### 4.1 Inequality is a false belief



This argument is based on Descartes' method for the search of
truth
 (section 2.1)
 and closely connected to Poulain's criticism of prejudice
 (section 3.1).
 It is Poulain's most substantial argument in the sense that a
large part of *De l'egalite* consists of
his refutations of claims about the inferiority of women. Poulain
argues that beliefs about women are not based on women's essence
or nature, but historically constructed prejudices
 (section 3.2).
 Desmond Clarke, in particular, has emphasized this aspect of
Poulain's criticism and connected it to a general Cartesian
criticism of Scholastic explanatory models, which explain "any
phenomenon simply by postulating a 'form' or
'nature' that corresponds to each reality that needs to be
explained" (Clarke 2013: 41). Poulain's criticism of a
scholastic notion of 'nature' is most explicit in a
passage where he argues against "Lawyers' opinions",
which carry "a lot of weight for many people because they
profess specifically to give everyone their due" (T1en 152; TTfr
94). These Scholastic lawyers, among whom scholars claim that Poulain
includes Hugo Grotius (Stuurman 2004: 166-167), say "that
it is nature that assigns women to the lowest functions in society and
removes them from public offices", but they would, according to
Poulain, 



> 
> 
> be hard pressed if they were required to explain intelligibly what
> they mean by 'nature' in this context, and to explain how
> nature distinguished the two sexes, as they claim. (T1en 152; TTfr
> 94-95) 
> 
> 
> 



Poulain argues that 'nature' is, in this context, a
non-explanatory concept. We can compare his criticism with that of
Gournay: whereas she argues that when correctly interpreted, the
Scholastic concept of the human being does not allow for a distinction
of sex, he argues that this kind of concept cannot explain the true
nature of the sexes in the first place.



Poulain also argues that inequality is a false belief by giving
numerous examples of the equal and even superior abilities of women.
Many of these examples are speculative generalizations, which would
not satisfy Cartesian criteria for certainty. Poulain writes, for
example, that it 



> 
> 
> is a pleasure to hear a woman pleading a legal case. No matter how
> complicated a case may be, she unravels it and explains it clearly.
> [...] One finds throughout women's conduct of legal cases a
> certain competence that men lack. (T1en 139; TTfr 79) 
> 
> 
> 



The generalization made here is not valid and does in fact resemble
the generalizations about women's inferiority that Poulain is
attacking. But we must also note that he does not need more than one
example of a woman who pleads her case well in order to show that
women are not by their *nature* unable to do so. In this sense
his generalizations are superfluous. Poulain seems to be aware of this
philosophically more valid aspect of arguing from examples when he
writes:



> 
> 
> Just as it is rather unfair to believe that all women are indiscreet
> simply because one knows five or six who are such, one should be
> equally fair and conclude that women are capable of scientific study
> because one sees that a number of them have been able to raise
> themselves to such heights. (T1en 142; TTfr 82)
> 
> 
> 



Even here Poulain is not completely clear about the crucial difference
between invalid generalizations from examples and the valid use of
examples in order to show that a given generalization is untrue. But
he allows for a generous interpretation according to which his primary
aim is to show that generalizations about the inferiority of women are
false.


### 4.2 Similarity of the sexes



In addition to showing that claims about inequality are false, Poulain
aims to show that the sexes are equal, because they are in all
relevant respects similar. In the second part of *De l'egalite*, this argument is placed under the subtitle
*Women, when considered from the perspective of the principles of
sound philosophy, are as capable as men of every kind of
knowledge* and begins with the above (in
 section 2.2)
 cited claim that "the mind has no sex" (T1en 157; TTfr
99). Poulain argues:



> 
> 
> It is easy to see that sexual differences apply only to the body.
> Since, strictly speaking, the body alone is involved in the
> reproduction of human beings and the mind merely gives its assent and
> does so in the same manner in everyone, it follows that the mind has
> no sex. (T1en 157; TTfr 99-100)
> 
> 
> 



Here, Poulain is primarily concerned with the nature of the mind, but
the way he connects reproduction and assent is also noteworthy and
corresponds to his emphasis, in *De l'exellence*, that
when a woman and a man "agree to live together it is purely
voluntary" (TTen 280; TTfr 313; see also *De
l'egalite*, T1en 153; TTfr 95). From his claim
about equal consent, Poulain draws the conclusion that if "the
mind is considered in itself, it is found to be equal and to have the
same nature in all human beings, and to be capable of every kind of
thought" (T1en 158; TTfr 100; see also
 section 2.2).



The equality of independent minds is not enough, though, since human
beings are compounds of minds and bodies. Minds are constantly
affected by bodies. Therefore Poulain continues by arguing that the
bodies of the sexes are also similar in all cognitively relevant respects. He claims that this is particularly true of the brain:



> 
> 
> [The fact that the mind functions no differently in one sex than in
> the other] is even clearer if one considers only the head, which is
> the unique organ of scientific knowledge and in which the mind
> exercises all its functions. Even with the most detailed anatomical
> investigations, we cannot observe any difference in this organ between
> men and women. The brains of the latter are completely similar to
> ours; they receive and combine sensory impressions there in the same
> way as we do, and they store them for the imagination and memory in
> exactly the same way. (T1en 158; TTfr 101)
> 
> 
> 



The problem with an argument based on the similarity of cognitive
organs such as the brain, is that it makes equality dependent on
empirical findings. The "most detailed anatomical
investigations" to which Poulain refers was not very advanced
according to today's standards and the contemporary Cartesian
Malebranche drew different conclusions about women's brains,
including their imaginations (see also Clarke 2013: 44, 50).
Malebranche does not claim that all women have weaker capacities than
all men, quite the contrary: "some women are found to have
stronger minds than some men", but he argues that most women
"cannot use their imagination for working out complex and
tangled questions" and connects this inability to the
"delicacy of the brain fibers [that] is the principal cause of
all these effects" (Malebranche 1674-75 [1997: 130]).
Present day brain research is more advanced, but has still not settled
the question of whether there are cognitively significant differences
between women and men. Considered as a philosophical argument, an
appeal to brain research remains weak. In order to avoid reducing the
question of mental capacity to a question to be answered by brain
scientists, we need a concept of the mind that cannot be reduced to
the physiological body.



Even if Poulain emphasizes the similarity of the cognitively
significant physical organs of women and men, he does not seem to want
to provide a thoroughly materialist account (see also
 section 2.2).
 Jacqueline Broad has developed a nuanced interpretation of
Poulain's position, where she emphasizes the role of the free
will and in particular its capacity to assent or dissent (Broad 2017:
74-76). Descartes famously argued that a judgment consists of
two elements: a perception of the intellect and an action of the will.
In order to avoid error, the will must assent only to those
perceptions that are clear and distinct (e.g., *Principia*
SSSS 32-35; CSM I, 204; AT VIIIA, 17-18).
According to this account it is ultimately the will which is
responsible when we err. Broad's interpretation builds on the
passage in *De l'egalite* where Poulain
claims that "we can yoke our will to [the causes of the
passions] or dissociate it from them" (TTen 84; TTfr 102; see
also
 section 2.2).
 She argues that 



> 
> 
> like Descartes, Poullain suggests that agents are capable of
> overcoming the influence of their bodies through the exercise of free
> will: they might either "yoke" their will to the causes of
> their passions or "dissociate" it from them. (Broad 2017:
> 76; on Descartes' and Poulain's
> accounts of judgment, see also Reuter 2013: 79-80)
> 
> 
> 



Broad's interpretation captures Poulain's egalitarian
intentions and an account built on the independence of the will has
the obvious advantage that even if there would be empirically
detectable differences in how women and men are influenced by their
bodies, they may share an equal freedom of will to assent or dissent
to their passions as well as imaginings (see also Reuter 2019:
49-51). The philosophical problem with this account is that it
leaves Poulain's position open to the objections raised most
prominently by Elisabeth of Bohemia in her correspondence with
Descartes. On 22 June 1645 she writes:



> 
> 
> I know well that in removing everything upsetting to me (which I
> believe to be represented only by the imagination) from the idea of an
> affair, I would judge it healthily and would find in it the remedies
> as well as the affection which I bring to it. But I have never known
> how to put this into practice until the passion has already played its
> role. (Shapiro [ed.] 2007: 93; AT IV, 233-234)
> 
> 
> 



Elisabeth is describing her inability to dissociate her will from the
affairs that affect her. This lack of ability is not due to a lack of
knowledge about how external influences act on her, quite the
contrary, she is well aware of the roles played by the passions and
the imagination, but argues that regardless of her knowledge, she is
unable to voluntarily dissociate her assent. In this letter Elisabeth
is arguing from her personal experience, but her criticism is framed
by the metaphysical questions she raised in her early letters. In her
second letter (10 June 1643) she summarizes the point:



> 
> 
> it is altogether very difficult to understand that a soul, as you have
> described it, after having had the faculty and the custom of reasoning
> well, can lose all of this by some vapors, and that, being able to
> subsist without the body, and having nothing in common with it, the
> soul is still so governed by it. (Shapiro [ed.] 2007: 68; AT III,
> 685)
> 
> 
> 



Elisabeth raises the question of how it is possible that the mind can
be simultaneously distinct from and affected by the body. These are
exactly the kind of metaphysical worries that Poulain leaves
unaddressed, with the consequence that he is unable to provide a valid
metaphysical basis for his claims about the similarity of the
sexes.


### 4.3 Natural equality



Regardless of how successfully Poulain is able to show the similarity
between the intellectual capacities of women and men, such descriptive
similarity provides a weak--if any--foundation for a
normative concept of equality (also Clarke 2013: 49; Hoekstra 2013).
In order to find a normative basis for Poulain's claim about the
equality of the sexes I will first look at his references to the
natural equality and liberty of humankind. In *De
l'egalite*, Poulain writes that
"dependence and servitude are contrary to the law of nature
which makes all men equal" (TTen 78; TTfr 95) and a few pages
later he points out that when humans are imagined separate from civil
society, they are found "completely free and equal, with only a
desire for self-preservation and an equal right to everything that
would be necessary to achieve it" (T1en 164; TTfr 106). Poulain
does not elaborate on what he means by the law of nature or by the
state of nature preceding civil society. It is not clear to what
extent he is relying on the Scholastic tradition of natural law, which
he would have known from his studies at Sorbonne, and to what extent
he is inspired by more recent developments, such as the natural law
theory of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes.



Both passages cited above are situated in contexts that do have
Hobbesian connotations: in the first case Poulain is distinguishing
natural equality from the arbitrary nature of dependence in the civil
state (see also
 section 3.2)
 and in the second case he continues:



> 
> 
> But [the woman studying law and politics] would also notice that this
> equality would involve them in war or a permanent state of mutual
> distrust, which would be inconsistent with their objective, and that
> the natural light of reason would dictate that they could not live in
> peace unless everyone surrendered their rights and made contracts or
> conventions. She would also see that, in order to validate these
> decisions and to protect people from anxiety, it would be necessary to
> have recourse to a third party who would have authority to force
> everyone to observe what they had promised to others. (T1en 164; TTfr
> 106; see also Hobbes, *Leviathan*, part I, chap.
> 13-15)
> 
> 
> 



On these grounds, and considering which works were available in
Poulain's intellectual context, Stuurman concludes that
"Hobbes is his most likely source" (2004: 177). The
probable influence of Hobbes is very illuminating, in particular when
we consider Poulain's view of the arbitrary nature of power, but
Stuurman seems to overemphasize the Hobbesian nature of
Poulain's views when he indicates that Poulain rejects natural
sociability (Stuurman 2004: 178). Poulain does indeed emphasize the
role of fear as a motive for political society in *De
l'egalite* (T1en 164; TTfr 106) as well as
*De l'excellence* (TTen 280; TTfr 313), but it is crucial
to note that he does not consider fear to be a necessary aspect of the
natural condition of humankind. The description of "the golden
age of liberty", which Poulain gives in *De
l'excellence*, is a description of natural sociability:



> 
> 
> At the dawn of the world, traces of which are still to be seen in the
> innocent loves of shepherds and shepherdesses and in the pleasures of
> the rustic life, which is untroubled by the fear of powers or enemies,
> all men were equal, just, and sincere, since their only rule and law
> was that of good sense. (TTen 313; TTfr 392)
> 
> 
> 



As we can see, fear does not exist in this original state, it is
introduced as a consequence of "some men [taking] advantage of
their strength and their leisure to try to subjugate others"
(ibid.; see also the passage cited in
 section 3.2).
 Poulain does claim that humans have "a desire for
self-preservation and an equal right to everything that would be
necessary to achieve it" (T1en 164; TTfr 106), but when we
consider his writings as a whole, he does not seem to claim that this
desire is in itself the origin of constant confrontations and the fear
raised by these confrontations.



Poulain's discussions of natural equality and liberty in *De
l'excellence* are framed by theological references,
including a reference to "St. Augustine, who claims that man
should place nothing above himself save God alone" (TTen 279;
TTfr 312; also Wilkin 2019: 234-236). Poulain may have in mind a
passage in *De civitate Dei* (book XIX, chap. 15), where
Augustine writes:



> 
> 
> God wanted rational man, made to his image, to have no dominion except
> over irrational nature. He meant no man, therefore, to have dominion
> over man, but only man over beast. So it fell out that those who were
> holy in primitive times became shepherds over sheep rather than
> monarchs over men, [...]. (Augustine 413-427 [2008:
> 223])
> 
> 
> 



Kinch Hoekstra, among others, has emphasized that this chapter from
*De civitate Dei*, as well as a passage in *De doctrina
Christiana* (book I, chap. 23), where Augustine states that human beings are naturally
equal, influenced discussions about natural equality and liberty well
into the seventeenth century (Hoekstra 2013: 95). When we look for the
normative basis of Poulain's claim that all humans are equal
(shepherds and all), this theological origin, deriving equality from
the creation of humankind, is at least as probable as Hobbes'
account of equality (for an influential interpretation of the
normative nature of the latter, see Hoekstra 2013). Here we do not
find a definite break with the scholastic tradition. Poulain is using
its concept of equality in order to argue--against many
Scholastic authors--that natural equality must be applied to the
relation between women and men.


### 4.4 The demand for equality



Desmond Clarke and Jacqueline Broad both emphasize that
Poulain's concept of equality is normative in the sense that it
includes a *demand* for equal opportunity. According to Clarke
we find in Poulain (and other seventeenth-century feminist authors) a
"claim to the effect that all persons should enjoy equal access
to certain human goods" (2013: 49). This demand is in itself
dependent on the idea that people are in some relevant respect equal
and in the case of Poulain we can see that his demand for equal
opportunity is rooted in his discussions of ability
 (section 4.2)
 as well as his notion of natural equality
 (section 4.3).



Broad points at a passage in *De l'egalite*
where Poulain's demand for equal right is clearly put:
"all of us, men or women, have an equal right to truth since the
minds of both are equally able to apprehend it" (TTen 91; TTfr
111). Here the connection between equal right and equal ability is
explicit and we can see why it is so urgent for Poulain to show that
women and men have equal minds. The claim that there are no relevant
differences between the minds of women and men is not in itself
normative, but provides a basis for demanding the equal right to
exercise ones mind. As Broad shows, Poulain's demand for an
equal right to truth is closely connected to the pursuit of virtue and
ultimately of true happiness, that can be achieved only through virtue
(Broad 2017: 79; 2019: 32). Poulain writes that "[s]ince the two
sexes are capable of the same happiness, they have the same right to
everything that may be used to acquire it" (T1en 169; TTfr
111).



It is important to note, as Broad does, that Poulain, following
Descartes almost word by word, defines virtue as "a firm and
stable resolve to do what one thinks is best in various
circumstances" (T1en 187; TTfr 131; also Descartes' letter
to Elisabeth of 4 August 1645, Shapiro [ed.] 2007: 98; AT IV, 265).
From this emphasis on resolve follows that we do not need to assume
that the will is always actually able to yoke itself to or dissociate
itself from the passions (see
 section 4.2):
 it is sufficient to make a resolute attempt in order to be virtuous.
Poulain's claim that women and men have an equal ability of
resolution, an ability he explicitly claims belongs to the mind and
depends on the body only as its instrument (T1en 187; TTfr 131), is
thus valid regardless of whether the sexes are actually able to
similarly govern their passions (even if he holds that the second
claim is also true). An equal ability of resolution is in itself
enough as a basis for the demand that women and men have an equal
right to knowledge and all other additional means of achieving full
virtue and thereby, according to Poulain, happiness. (There is an
extensive scholarly discussion of exactly how Descartes connects
virtue and happiness; for a recent account see Svensson 2019.)



Poulain's demand for an equal right to knowledge is in effect a
demand for an equal right to proper education. When Poulain refers to
education, it is most often in order to lament "the minimal
education that women are given" (T1en 196; TTfr 141). In *De
l'egalite* he argues that if we conceive a
lack of cognitive ability in women, that "should be attributed
uniquely to the conditions in which they live and the education they
are given, which include the ignorance in which they are left"
(T1en 188; TTfr 132-133; see also G-EMW 59-60; G-OC
971-972). But Poulain's criticism of the current state of
affairs includes a demand for change and right at the beginning of the
first conversation in *De l'education*,
Stasimachus points out: "as I think it absolutely essential to
have an education, I would organize things in such a way that women
could get one as easily as men" (TTen 144; TTfr 163). Following
from Poulain's Cartesian criticism of the Scholastic
institutions of learning, articulated in detail by Stasimachus,
education is pictured as a private enterprise and the outline of
*De l'education*, five conversations set in
Sophia's private home, can be read as Poulain's example of
the ideal form of education. In this setting equality is emphasized by
the fact that we have one learned person of each sex, Stasimachus and
Sophia, and one eager pupil of each sex, Eulalia and Timander (on the roles of the four characters, see Schmitter 2018, 7-9).



The topic of education is also the topic that Poulain most evidently
shares with many of his predecessors as well as successors. The
question was forcefully raised by Christine de Pizan in *Le Livre
de la Cite des Dames* (part I, chap. 27), where she argues
that 



> 
> 
> if it were the custom to send little girls to school and to teach them
> all sorts of different subjects there, as one does with little boys,
> they would grasp and learn the difficulties of all the arts and
> sciences just as easily as the boys do, (Christine 1405 [1999: 57])
> 
> 
> 
> 



and is still an essential theme in Mary Wollstonecraft's *A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman* (1792).


## 5. Poulain and His Successors



Poulain's feminist treatises did not have a large following in
France, but neither were they without impact. There were some
authorized as well as unauthorized re-editions (for a complete list
see Alcover 1981; also Welch 2002a: 25-31), but the references
to his works are scarce. One exception is Gabriele Suchon, who
mentions "the author of the Equality" in her
*Traite de la morale et de la politique* [Treatise on ethics and politics] (1693), where she defends women's liberty as well as capacity of learning (Welch 2002a: 29; Shapiro 2017; Wilkin 2019). In the next
century Louise Dupin cites Poulain in her unfinished manuscript *Ouvrage
sur les femmes* [Work on Women] (ca. 1745), and we have direct evidence that Montesquieu spoke highly of *De
l'egalite* (Thielemann 1983: 321-326;
Stuurman 2004: 283-289; Wilkin 2019). It is also very likely
that Rousseau, who was working as Dupin's secretary while she
worked on her manuscript, was familiar with at least Poulain's
first treatise.



Already in 1677, *De l'egalite* was
anonymously published in English translation under the name *The
Woman as Good as the Man* and Poulain's thoughts, if not his
name, seems to have influenced English discussions of the equality of
the sexes well into the eighteenth century (Leduc 2010; Clarke 2013:
12-13). One important mediator was the treatise *Woman Not
Inferior to Man: or, A short and modest Vindication of the natural
Right of the FAIR-SEX to a perfect Equality of Power, Dignity, and
Esteem, with the Men* (1739), published under the pseudonym
"Sophia, A Person of Quality". This treatise, which has
only recently received attention from scholars, appropriated several
passages from Poulain's treatise and radicalized his claims into
an even more explicit demand for the rights of women (Clarke 2013:
43-44; Broad 2019). We do not yet know enough about the
reception history of Sophia's treatise, or about
Wollstonecraft's use of sources, in order to be able to even
guess if there was a direct influence between the two vindications of
the rights of women, but Broad has recently shown that we can detect a
continuity in the topic of dignity as the foundation for women's
rights that stretches from Poulain to Wollstonecraft (Broad 2019).



When we consider Poulain's influence in France during the
eighteenth century, we must take into account that the idea of
equality based on the similarity of the sexes was much more contested
than in England. In *Emile* (1762), Rousseau famously
claims: 



> 
> 
> how vain are disputes as to whether one of the two sexes is superior
> or whether they are equal--as though each, in fulfilling
> nature's ends according to its own particular purpose were
> thereby less perfect than if it resembled the other more!. (1762
> [1979: 358]; 2012: 825) 
> 
> 
> 



Rousseau argued that the sexes are neither equal nor unequal, they are
different, and should aim at perfecting their differences in order to
form a harmonious couple. Poulain's demand for equality based on similarity was something to be argued against rather than adopted. Though
Rousseau's views on the relations between the sexes were heavily
criticized by English feminists such as Wollstonecraft (Reuter 2014),
they influenced many French feminists (Berges 2016). When
Olympe de Gouges declares the rights of women during the French
Revolution, she does not appeal to the similarity of the sexes, but to
their harmonious union, which is fulfilled by all other animals except
humans. In her famous *Les droits de la femme. A La Reine* [The
rights of women. To the Queen] (1791), she writes, addressing
tyrannical men, 



> 
> 
> distinguish, if you can, between the sexes in the workings of nature.
> Everywhere you will find them intermixed; everywhere they cooperate in
> this immortal masterpiece with a harmonious togetherness. (1791 [2011:
> 30]; 1993: 206) 
> 
> 
> 



We do hear an echo from the golden age of liberty, but it is an echo
formed by Rousseau's emphasis on the harmonious union of the
sexes.



During the early decades of the twentieth century there was a new
interest in what was seen as the history of feminist thought,
actualized by the hotly debated question of women suffrage, and this
resulted in some early scholarly essays on Poulain (Grappin 1913,
1914; Lefevre 1914). In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir made Poulain's
name known when she (rather freely) cites his phrase "one should
be suspicious of everything that men have said about women because
they are both judges and litigants" (T1en 151; TTfr 93) as a
motto for her *Le deuxieme sexe* [The second sex].
Poulain is more than a motto for Beauvoir and when discussing facts
and myths about women, she describes his analysis in the following
words:



> 
> 
> [Poulain] thinks that since men are stronger, they favor their sex and
> women accept this dependence out of custom. They never had their
> chances: in either freedom or education. Thus they cannot be judged by
> what they did in the past. Nothing indicates their inferiority to men.
> Anatomy reveals differences, but none of them constitutes a privilege
> for the male. (Beauvoir 1949/1989: 184-185 [2011: 123-124])
> 
> 
> 



In addition to being an excellent summary of Poulain's argument,
this passage is an interesting key to Beauvoir's own analysis of
how women become the second sex (see also Welch 2002a: 32; on
Cartesian aspects of Beauvoir's thought, see Heinamaa
2005).