Product Description: In his Discourses (1755), Rousseau argues that inequalities of rank, wealth, and power are the inevitable result of the civilizing process. If inequality is intolerable - and Rousseau shows with unparalledled eloquence how it robs us not only of our material but also of our psychological independence - then how can we recover the peaceful self-sufficiency of life in the state of nature? We cannot return to a simpler time, but measuring the costs of progress may help us to imagine alternatives to the corruption and oppressive conformity of modern society...read more

Product Description: In this example of Cartesian rationalism, Poullain expounds a remarkably modern feminist position - that sexual inequality is not rooted in nature, but is the historical result of custom, ignorance, and prejudice. Translated into English text from the original French text of 1673, this edition also includes an introduction...read more

Product Description: One of the most radical feminist theorists in Europe before the nineteenth century, François Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723) was a man way ahead of his time. Applying Cartesian principles to "the Woman Question," Poullain demonstrated by rational deduction that the supposedly "self-evident" inequality of the sexes was nothing more than unfounded prejudice...read more

Product Description: Poullain de La Barre's De l'égalité des deux sexes is one of the earliest and most important statements on the difference between "sex" and "gender." Published in 1673, Poullain's treatise argues that the popular opinion of the inferiority of women is little more that socialized prejudice, legitimized by historians and philosophers who falsely assign their bias to nature rather than to their own psycho-sexual fears of female power...read more