Feminists Versus Gallants: Manners and Morals in Enlightenment Britain

Article

Taylor, Barbara 2004. Feminists Versus Gallants: Manners and Morals in Enlightenment Britain. Representations.
AuthorsTaylor, Barbara
Abstract

Mary Wollstonecraft is usually portrayed as an Enlightenment thinker. But in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) she denounced “modern philosophers” for purveying prejudicial images of women masked in a rhetoric of sexual compliment. This essay explores the relationship between Enlightenment attitudes to women and feminism in Britain, showing the gap that opened up between mainstream enlightened opinion (“modern gallantry”) and women's-rights egalitarianismin the 1790s.

KeywordsMary Wollstonecraft; women's-rights; literary criticism; British feminism
JournalRepresentations
ISSN0734-6018
Year2004
Publisher's version
License
CC BY-ND
Web address (URL)http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rep.2004.87.1.125
http://hdl.handle.net/10552/735
Publication dates
Print2004
Publication process dates
Deposited19 Apr 2010
Additional information

Citation:
Taylor, B. (2004) ‘Feminists Versus Gallants: Manners and Morals in Enlightenment Britain’ Representations 87 Summer 2004, pp.125–148.

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Tayler, B (2004) Rep 87 125-148.pdf
License: CC BY-ND

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