* Sappho, Eloisa, Mrs. Macaulay, the Empress of Russia, Madame
d'Eon, &c. These, and many more, may be reckoned exceptions; and,
are not all heroes, as well as heroines, exceptions to general
rules? I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable
creatures.
Chap. V.
Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered
Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt
The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on
the female character and education, which have given the tone to
most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the sex,
remain now to be examined.
SECT. I.
I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of his character of
woman, in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My
comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles,
and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the
artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that it
seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner, and make
the application myself.
Sophia, says Rousseau, should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is
a man, and to render her so, it is necessary to examine the
character which nature has given to the sex.
He then proceeds to prove that woman ought to be weak and passive,
because she has less bodily strength than man; and hence infers,
that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and that it is
her duty to render herself agreeable to her master- this being the
grand end of her existence.
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