{"id":8,"date":"2014-11-17T15:23:54","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T22:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/?p=8"},"modified":"2014-11-17T15:23:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T22:23:54","slug":"hold-up-rousseau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/2014\/11\/17\/hold-up-rousseau\/","title":{"rendered":"Hold up Rousseau"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Rousseau’s statements that I take exception to in his Discourse on Inequality<\/em>\u00a0is his opinion of women and how they should behave in society. He claims that women in the commonwealth “[assure] the happiness of the other” sex (Rousseau 65). Here it seems that Rousseau is proposing that women exist in society to cater to men. I don’t think I need to explain how infuriated I was when reading this passage. Needless to say I had to take a few deep breaths before continuing on. But as I continued to read this passage, I found that Rousseau actually redeems himself somewhat by stating that “the destiny of [the female sex] will always be to govern [the male sex]” (Rousseau 65). Perhaps this is just Rousseau’s way of making women feel that their role as servants to men is important in society, however he only refers to a woman’s “chaste power, exerted solely within the marriage bond” (Rousseau 65). In a way, Rousseau is suggesting that women are more important than men in some instances, which still demonstrates his unequal attitude towards the relationship between men and women.<\/p>\n

What is more, Rousseau makes it very clear that only a certain type of woman should exist in society, that is a woman who “through the persuasive sweetness of [her] lessons and the modest grace of [her] conversation” can uphold peace among men (Rousseau 65). Rousseau condemns “loose women” and states that they have no place in a civil society. And yet, Rousseau closes his discussion on women’s role in society by stating that they should “continue, therefore, always to be as [they] are” (Rousseau 65). What if, might I ask Rousseau, not all women are born to be the gentle and chaste women as described in your fantasy? Should those women still continue to be who they are?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Rousseau’s statements that I take exception to in his Discourse on Inequality\u00a0is his opinion of women and how they should behave in society. He claims that women in the commonwealth “[assure] the happiness of the other” sex (Rousseau 65). Here it seems that Rousseau is proposing that women exist in society to cater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/embeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}