Rousseau And Virginia Woolf: The Unequal Status Of Women In Society
Introduction
The role and equality of women in society has been a discussion that has only built in urgency and the diversity of positions held over the last several centuries. Today no less than past eras it is a relevant and necessary discussion to continue, in the hope that the debate can be moved closer resolution. Two prominent contributors to the debate surrounding the (in)equality of women have been Virginia Woolf and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with A Room of One’s Own, and Emile Or, On Education respectively. This essay will examine the main points made by both texts as a comparative analysis of how they deal with the same issue of the equality of women. The essay will attempt to lay out the arguments made by both, examine them methods used, and the quality of the arguments made. It will also attempt analyse how the arguments interact with one another. The final goal of the essay is to use Woolf’s arguments regarding the equality of women and what they need in order to perform equally to criticise Rousseau’s arguments regarding the inferiority of women. The essay will take the position that Rousseau’s argument is weakened by internal contradictions, and requires claims for which evidence is not provided. And finally that it likely necessitates a corollary for which no argument is made. The essay will then argue that Woolf’s argument is the stronger philosophical position, due to it providing evidence that is falsifiable by relying on practical evidence of observable power relationships in addition to historical accounts, and does not suffer from any internal contradictions. This essay does cannot attempt to be the final say in such a discussion for many reasons not least of which being that it lacks the scope to include a thorough analysis of the wider discussion around the issues of the equality of women. The essay instead attempts only to be one small part of the discussion, by focusing on a particular issue as tackled by Rousseau and Woolf, in the hope that it might provide a useful contribution to a wider discussion of the same issues.
Rousseau on Women and Education
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher from Geneva, who had a significant influence on political philosophy during the enlightenment, such as his work on social contracts and inequality. He also published one of the most significant works on education of the 18th century: Emile or, On Education (for brevity, Emile will be used from here). It is this text which will be one of the focuses of this essay. Emile examines human nature, and what it can tell us about constructing an effective system of education, alongside the relationship between individuals and society. To lay out Rousseau’s ideas, a narrative structure is used that follows a character (the eponymous Emile) through their development from childhood into adolescence, laying out how a child should be raised to conform to Rousseau’s philosophy. The book is split into five chapters, with the first four focusing on Emile, and the final fifth chapter discussing the education Emile’s prospective wife-to-be, Sophie. It is this final chapter which is of particular importance to us, as it examines Rousseau’s ideal of the relationship between men and women, and their roles and positions in society. Rousseau describes Sophie as an “ideal woman”, and uses her as a means of demonstrating the philosophy of the social roles of women that Rousseau is arguing for. Rousseau states that men and women are equal in those areas that they have in common, but that where they do not share commonality, they are unequal – ‘A perfect woman and a perfect man ought not to resemble each other’. In Rousseau’s view, women should be passive, and ‘put up little resistance’. Men on the other hand should be strong and able, with the merit that justifies the position of men in society being the fact of their strength.
Rousseau takes from this principle that women exist to please men. Rousseau seemingly pre-empts the argument that this means abject servitude of women to men but arguing that in this state of relation men and women both contribute equally to the common goal, though in different ways. On education for men and women, Rousseau also argues for a difference: While men and women act towards the same goal in society, their capabilities and roles are different, and thus also should be their education, to suit these different roles. One of the chief differences of relevance Rousseau argues for is women having a lesser capacity in reasoning compared to men. This is important as it informs Rousseau’s view of women’s role in society, but also it suggests a potential contradiction in the role of women in society put forth in Emile. In view of this difference of capability, Rousseau states that women should have a subservient and supportive role in society and families, saying that ideal women should chiefly be mothers and wives, in so being helping men to be ideal men. As such, women should be educated primarily on domestic duties, such as cooking and housekeeping, in addition to the education of children. This is where an internal contradiction is suggested: Is the idea of women having an inferior ability to reason compatible with the idea that they should also be the educators of men, who Rousseau presumes to be superior? This will be returned to later, when we will see how it interacts with Virginia Woolf’s views of the relationship between men and women. Woolf on Women and Fiction
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, originally published in 1929, is arguably one of the most significant contributions to early feminist writing and as with Emile, has had a considerable influence on the development of thought within its field. The text takes the form of a narrative essay that uses a character called Mary through whose experiences the arguments of the essay are conveyed. The primary subject of the essay is the question of women and fiction, specifically, why women are under-represented as authors of fiction and as writers in general. In seeking an answer to this question, Woolf uses the character of Mary to explore various social scenarios in which the relative positions and roles of women in the society of the time are shown. Woolf sets out early the primary argument that will be made using these scenarios: That to write fiction, women need enough money to make them independent of men, and a private space in which to work – this second is laid out in the title A Room of One’s Own. In regard to financial independence, Woolf argues this is necessary as it allows women not only to be practically independent from men and free from the need to work for a living, but also that it helps women to be emotionally independent. In this way, it is argued that with financial independence, comes the ability to look at the world without bitterness or resentment. Also argued is that with money comes access to improved quality of life (shown in the distinction between the quality of meals offered in traditional men’s universities and those reserved for women. With better food and the contentment it brings so the argument goes, one is able to think more clearly and creatively. Regarding the need for private space, Woolf argues that without such space women are victims of constant interruptions, which undermine the ability to think and thus produce writing.
Many examples are given of this throughout the essay: Mary is interrupted after having strayed from a path (the grass being only accessible to men), and in the process of the interruption loses her train of thought. Another example given is that women at home tend to have to use shared household space, almost never having access to a private study in the home. A consequence of this is that all sorts of daily household occurrences and housekeeping tasks serve as distractions, making it difficult to work with focus. In the example of Jane Austen (who is stated to have had to write in such a way) shown in the examination of historical writers, it is postulated that perhaps this is why Austen wrote fiction: It is (as is argued here) easier to produce fiction despite interruptions than it would be a more academic type of writing. Another issue raised by Woolf is that of the gender imbalance in the writing on women: In a scene where Mary goes to a public library to search out more information on the subject of why women are historically poor and seen as inferior, it is observed that almost all the writing on women is produced by men. And not only particularly qualified men either; men of practically any background are seemingly qualified to write on the fundamental attributes of women as Mary observes. At this point a metaphorical character “Professor X” is developed, which symbolises the intellectual body of these men writing on women. Professor X is characterised as writing in an angry fashion, disparaging the qualities of women with disdain. Woolf describes this anger as representing a need in these men to keep women out of the intellectual sphere not to subjugate purely for its own sake, but out of a need to maintain the supremacy of men. The inequality of women it is thus argued is a seen as a tool of maintaining the patriarchal status of men.
Woolf and Rousseau in Contrast
Rousseau and Woolf then can be seen as making arguments that deal with almost precisely the same phenomenon: Women in their respective periods are expected to chiefly concern themselves with housekeeping and the raising and education of children, at the expense of their liberty to engage in other activities. It is fundamentally the same situation that Rousseau defends, and Woolf attacks. Their methods however are quite different: Rousseau makes use of metaphysical arguments and when he talks of women, he talks of how they are intrinsically, of their intrinsic abilities, and how this justifies a certain state of affairs. Woolf on the other hand makes materialistic and practical arguments, which do not concern themselves at all with what women are metaphysically, but instead with what women have experienced within certain historical contexts. Rousseau’s argument would have it that women are inferior and should focus on their household duties, being wives and mothers to support men, in the name of a functional society. Woolf’s argument on the other hand accepts that as the current state of affairs, but says that it is not due to women being inferior, but to allow men to maintain their status of unequal privilege over women.
If women were granted an equal assumption of capability, along with the necessary resources and privacy needed, Woolf’s argument would have it that women would likely perform just as well as men in the field of writing, at the expense of men being able to see themselves as superior. It would appear to conclude, that whether we take Rousseau’s or Woolf’s argument to be the stronger would depend on whether we think metaphysical or material claims to be superior, and whether we find Woolf’s examples to correspond to reality. There are a number of reasons this essay would argue that we should take Woolf’s position however: First, Woolf’s argument provides concrete and falsifiable examples in the argument proposed in A Room of One’s Own, Which a reader can decide the truth of based on correspondence with their own observations or research elsewhere. Second, Rousseau’s argument provides no such falsifiability – the claim of women having an inferior capacity to reason is made with little evidence to be refuted, and we are left to take Rousseau’s word, or not. Third, there is the issue of the contradiction mentioned earlier: If Rousseau honestly believes women are inferior at reasoning, then how is giving them a prominent role in educating children consistent with that? Either Rousseau would have to believe poor reasoning ability does not make a person a poor educator, or that it does not matter if people are poorly educated. As the entire project of Emile is to establish an effective method of education, the second option is unlikely. The first would be a bold claim however, and one to which Rousseau does not apply any particular argument.
Conclusion
This essay has tried to demonstrate how Rousseau’s Emile and Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own present arguments about the same fundamental issue: The unequal status of women in society. It has summarised the main points of the arguments presented in both texts, paying attention to both the particulars of the arguments made, but also to the methods used to make them. In examining each argument, it has tried to show the important particulars relevant to each, and to how Rousseau’s argument supports the idea of women being educated differently to men, and how Woolf’s argument attacks such a state of affairs. The essay has tried to how the arguments interact with each other in their particulars. It has discussed how Rousseau’s argument that women should be educated differently and in particular to be wives and mothers to support the potential of men is met directly by Woolf’s argument that this is what is currently done. It has examined how Woolf’s argument provides a counter-proposal that rather than trying to establish and maintain a more functional society, this inequality between men and women in fact only establishes and maintains the dominance of men. The essay finally attempted to examine which of these perspectives is the stronger philosophical position and provides a better proposal for the organisation of society. On examining the metaphysical assumptions upon which Rousseau’s position hinges, and the material argument Woolf’s relies upon, it has suggested that the evidence for Woolf’s argument is more compelling.
Further it has been argued that Woolf’s argument is falsifiable, while Rousseau’s is not. Finally, it has argued that Rousseau’s position on the inferior reasoning capacity of women, alongside the argument for them serving a prominent role in educating children, is a contradiction. Rousseau cannot at the same time claim that women cannot reason as well as men, and at the same time believe they should serve as educators without advocating one of two corollaries: That it does not matter what quality of education is given to citizens of his society (something which is contradicted by education being the core project of Emile), or that reasoning capacity does not affect ability to teach. This last is logically coherent, but as the essay argues, it is a bold claim that lacks substantial evidence or argumentation in support of it. The proposition of this essay then is that the arguments and evidence heavily favour Woolf’s position, as it makes no claims it does not provide some form of evidence for the evidence it provides is falsifiable, and it does not contradict itself.
References
- Woolf, Virginia. 2014. A room of one’s own and three guineas. London: William Collins.
- Roussea, Jean-Jacques, and Bloom, Allan. 2001. Emile or, on education. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
