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The degree to which women during the Enlightenment were either oppressed and kept to the private sphere or participated in changing the political and social institutions of the day has always been debated. Middle and upper class women often had more opportunity to have a significant role in the public sphere than has previously been thought.〔See Hannah Barker, Elaine Chalus, eds. ''Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representation and Responsibilities''. London: Longman, 1997〕 Dr. Rosalind Carr has proposed that "()he history of the Enlightenment can sometimes appear as a male narrative, dominated by canonical male writers, with women appearing only as subjects denied an equality of rationality and relegated to a feminine domesticity", though current study emphasized their roles as "participants within, rather than only as subjects of, the Enlightenment."〔Dr Rosalind Carr, review of ''Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain'', (review no. 831) URL: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/831 Date accessed: 29 August 2013. See also Karen O'Brien, ''Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain'' (Cambridge: ''Cambridge University Press'', 2009)〕 Dorinda Outram noted the role of women in the organization of the ''salon'', while also admitting that there was "a concerted attack by many male writers on the capacity of women in general to contribute to the store of ideas and discussions."〔''The Enlightenment''(Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 24.〕 However, many counter-challenges are equally evident in the writings of this period. Mary Wollstonecraft, for instance, asked "Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him of the gift of reason."〔''Vindication of the Rights of Woman'' (), ed. M. B. Kramnick, 1982, p. 87.〕 ==Salons and Salonnieres== Dena Goodman describes women in the salons of France as a very small number of elite women who were concerned with their own education and promoting the philosophies of the Enlightenment. Their purpose, Goodman says, was to "self-satisfy the educational needs of the women who started them." 〔Goodman, Dena. ''The Republic of Letters'', Cornell Publishers 1994 p.77〕 These women would host a salon either in their own home or in a hotel dining room dedicated to the salon's function. The salons developed from a late set meal where discourse was to take place afterwards to a meal early in the afternoon that would last until late at night. During the meal, the focus would be the discourse between patrons rather than the dining.〔Goodman, Dena. ''The Republic of Letters'', Cornell Publishers 1994 p.91〕 There was an hierarchical social structure in the salons, and the social rank of French society was upheld but under different rules of conversation. The "conversation was meant to replicate the formality of correspondence to limit conflict and misunderstanding between people of different social ranks and orders."〔Goodman, Dena. ''The Republic of Letters'', Cornell Publishers 1994 p.97〕 This allowed the common person to interact with the nobility. Through these salons, many people were able to make contacts and possibly move up the social ladder due to their fashionable opinions. Within the hierarchy of the salons, women assumed a role of governance. "As governors, rather than judges, salonierres provided the ground for philosopher's serious work by shaping and controlling the discourse to which men of letters were dedicated and which constituted their project of Enlightenment. In so doing, they transformed the salon from a leisure institution of the nobility to an institution of Enlightenment."〔Goodman, Dena. ''The Republic of Letters'', Cornell Publishers 1994 p.53〕 Women were able to take this position within the salons because of their gentle, polite, civil nature. Goodman uses the example of the salonierre Suzanne Necker to support her claim that these salons had an impact on politics, as Necker was married to Louis XVI's financial minister. The assumption is that the salon's topics might therefore have had a bearing on official government policy.〔Goodman, Dena. ''The Republic of Letters'', Cornell Publishers 1994 p.100〕 The salons were a forum in which elite, well-educated women might continue their learning in a place of civil conversation while governing the political discourse and a place where people of all social orders could interact. Antoine Lilti offers a differing opinion. While acknowledging the visible hierarchy of the salon, Lilti maintains that "()he politeness and congeniality of these aristocrats maintained a fiction of equality that never dissolved differences in status but nonetheless made them bearable." 〔Lilti, Antoine. ''Sociability and Mondanite: Men of Letters in the Parisian Salons of the Eighteenth Century'', Fayard 2005 p.5〕 The salons allowed people of varying social classes to converse but never as equals. Lilti describes two roles for women in the salons, the first being that they took the role of "protectorate."
The second reason women were involved in the salons was because the salons were based on high society's mixed gender sociability. "The women of the salons ensured the 'decency of the household', enlivened conversation, and served as the guarantors of politeness.'"〔Lilti, Antoine. ''Sociability and Mondanite:Men of Letters in the Parisian Salons of the Eighteenth Century'', Fayard 2005 p.17〕 A woman's presence ensured civilized conversation, not as "governors", but as a discrete way of inducing men to control their conduct. Lilti also maintains that the salons were not used as a way for women to further their education, but as a gathering for social events involving both men and women "in which hostesses welcomed into their homes both male and female socialites, as well as writers, as part of a mixed-gendered sociability dedicated to elite forms of entertainment: dining together, conversation, theatre, music, games, belles-lettres."〔 There was no emphasis on serious intellectual discussion; it was merely a form of entertainment that emphasized the hierarchy of social ranks. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women in the Enlightenment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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