Photo by cottonbro from Pexel
by Katherine Comfort
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s A Discourse on Inequality is an influential work of the early romantic period which has impacted many philosophers throughout the centuries. His views as a privileged and wealthy white man allow him to speak of returning to “the good old days” where men lived for themselves, with the freedom to go and do as they pleased, unshackled by the rules and expectations of modern society. However, his endorsement and justification of the primitive and presocial world soon exposes the denigration of Woman that Rousseau promotes. By placing Man and all his “good” and masculine qualities on a pedestal, he seems to reduce Woman to nothing more than an animal barely more intelligent than the beasts Man hunts. Rousseau demeans Woman and advocates her primary purpose be the Mother, later suggesting that she should be included as a man’s property, thus eliminating any power, individuality, or agency she, along with all humans, rightly deserves. In this essay, I will elucidate why Rousseau places so much emphasis on the presocial, how his biased discussion thwarts any subjectivity that Woman ought to possess, and why he views modern Woman as a dangerous force within society. I will examine these topics by following Rousseau’s flow of argument as he travels through the three stages of mankind—that of the Natural, Infant, and Modern Man. Additionally, I will focus on three controversial scholars who critique Rousseau’s depiction of women: first, Susan Moller Okin who analyzes his entire oeuvre as proof of his sexism in his endorsement of women as subordinate and as property; second, Mira Morgenstern, a feminist who perceives Rousseau as a social critic in favour of women; and finally, Emanuele Saccarelli who believes Rousseau utilizes Machiavellian techniques, pretending to praise tyrannical women and thereby deceiving them into compliance.
Throughout the first section of his treatise, Rousseau praises the earliest stage in human development. Deemed to be the stage of “presocial man,” his perception of how presocial humans survived is clearly glorified and twisted to fit a particular narrative claiming this period as the only time when all humans truly lived equal lives. His first several paragraphs depict early man as formidable, bear-like, and strong—a fierce and solitary predator whose “savage” power quickly teaches larger animals not “to attack [a] man” (Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality, 83). Further, he applauds the savage man for his, supposedly, unique ability to “assimilate instincts” as part of the process of cross-species observational learning, as this cements the survival of isolated Man (Rousseau, 82). Thus, since Man has no need to learn from members of his own species, he is fully independent and free to live through pure instinct, untethered by “passions” of the body and mind.
Rousseau claims that these passions are artificially developed through the rules and expectations set in place by a modern social environment, which degrades and leads humanity away from the good and natural state of the presocial. In his isolation, presocial Man does not experience the fear and competition from other members of the human race, just the natural fear of strong and ferocious predators as all creatures contend for survival. Rousseau believes that presocial Man survives through his own skills, living moment to moment; he, therefore, has neither the need nor the capability to predict and plan his future. But what of the other half of the human population that Rousseau barely addresses in his discussion? Where are the strong and savage women who hunt for their food, choose their mates, and raise the children they are left to protect and for whom they fend? Rousseau seems to grant subjectivity and agency to only the males of the human species, valorizing the presocial state through traditionally masculine traits, such as strength, agility, and power. Man, thus being a free agent, is able to choose paths according to his needs and desires. Rousseau seems to find in this presocial life an ultimate freedom for Man: untethered and uncommitted to others, he can follow his will and natural passions without a second thought. Rousseau implies that dependence weakens the freedom of Man, yet as Susan Okin suggests in her chapter on “The Natural Woman and her Role,” while the entirety of Rousseau’s argument praises the strong natural man, he “justif[ies] the perpetuation of a distinct and subordinate sex role for the female [claiming] that such a role is natural” (Okin, Women in Western Political Thought, 107).
Continuing with this theme, Okin reveals the inconsistencies in Rousseau’s argument, not only with regard to the Discourse but also to additional written works such as Émile and Letter to d’Alembert, for example. While some feminist critics of Rousseau claim that, when taken as a whole, his oeuvre promotes equality for mankind, Okin finds no such evidence. She detects that Rousseau’s commitment to the saying, “nature never lies,” is not as firm as he claims, for he is constantly altering the definition of what is “natural” with respect to women and how they are supposed to behave (Okin, 6). Summarizing Rousseau, Okin asserts that men and women are naturally independent from one another, having lived “isolated and nomadic lives, totally devoid of cooperation except for the momentary and chance encounters that satisfied their sexual impulses” (Okin, 109). But as soon as Woman becomes capable of making decisions with reason, she is stripped of this ability. Rousseau claims “woman is made to please and be subjected by man” and “it is according to nature for the woman to obey the man” (Okin quoting Rousseau’s Émile, 118). Declaring and then defending the idea that women ought to obey their male superiors, allows Rousseau to justify an inequality based on natural order: “[…]patriarchy is not remarked on by Rousseau as constituting an inequality between two adult human beings. Clearly the human inequality with whose origins the discourse is concerned is solely the inequality between one male and another” (Okin, 113). Rousseau’s entirely unequal and rather sexist views perpetuate men as having rights, freedoms, reason, creativity, and equality while women must be polite, quiet, subordinate, and motherly. Okin notes that “While [Rousseau] felt it was necessary to postulate a contractual origin, albeit a fraudulent one, for the first civil society, in order to refute the idea that ‘proud and unconquerable men’ would never have rushed into slavery, Rousseau did not feel at all compelled to explain why proud and unconquerable women should have done that same unreasonable thing” (Okin, 120). Although his stance on women shifts from nurturing guardians to evil concubines, the double standard he presents for women allows married men to roam about, freely planting their seed with no repercussion while the mother of his children is unable to fend for herself, let alone her child.
The discussion of the mother’s role in Rousseau’s Discourse is very problematic. He believes that there existed no interdependence between human beings in the presocial world. I would argue, in contrast, that humans are fundamentally social beings and, at the very least, have always been in a society of two—the mother and child. The strong, familial bond between mother and child, which offers protection and comfort to both parties, is disregarded by Rousseau and seen as a ploy by the mother “to satisfy her own needs” (Rousseau, 92). To Rousseau, the natural connection between mother and child is so distorted that, were it not for the “habit [that makes the child] dear to her,” “many mothers would naturally give up their child” (Rousseau, 92, 86). Rousseau’s continued criticisms of maternal nature insinuates that children are better off without their mother’s care since children “[do] not hesitate to leave their mother” at the first opportunity once they can fend for themselves (Rousseau, 92). Rousseau applauds these young children as they roam the wilds, reaching manhood with nothing but their instincts, strength, and adaptability about them (inherited solely by their fathers, he implies). But again, what of the female children who wander away from their mothers and depend on themselves? Is their strength and will not as strong as their fathers’ and brothers’ or are they meant to passively exist in the shadows until a man stumbles across a woman and chooses to procreate with her? Rousseau clearly deems the latter to be the natural state of Woman by saying that once “man’s appetite [is] satisfied, the man has no longer any need for [a] particular woman” (Rousseau, 165). The woman ought not to spurn a man’s advances lest she risk diminishing the human population, proving, once again, that Rousseau believes a woman is nothing more than a mother, whose sole purpose is to procreate when Man chooses; reproduction is “her proper purpose” (Okin quoting Rousseau’s Émile, 115) but seeking sex the way a man does makes her “positively treasonous” (Okin, 118). As mentioned above, his statement claiming that the child and mother will not recognize one another as soon as the child gains independence—both humans being fully self-sufficient from any other being after this separation—proves that Woman is equally as strong, intelligent, and independent as Man; however, Rousseau quickly renounces this position. Rousseau’s hypocrisy, once again, dismantles his own argument and credibility by portraying a mother’s natural state as either dependent and incapable of protecting her children, or as strong and free depending on the narrative and expectations he compels modern women to follow.
The entirety of the Discourse is plagued with hypocrisy and while men and women are supposedly equal, as previously shown, Rousseau does not address the female subject in its entirety, but as reduced to a very specific kind of maternal and sexual object. Rousseau implies that motherhood is a purely natural state, and he tries to show this, furthermore, by stating that Woman embodies the idea of “pity” or “compassion.” This is exhibited by her natural inclination to shelter and protect her young ones from danger (Rousseau, 99), the sentiment contributing to “the mutual preservation of the whole species” (Rousseau, 101). Pity, for Rousseau, is the most important “natural” virtue from which all others flow—generosity, clemency, and humanity. Because it exists in a perfect state within the presocial, it also exists in a perfect state within the maternal (Rousseau, 100). However, Rousseau has, thus, manipulated his readers into thinking that this trope of caring and loving mothers is their natural role when he originally argued for a cold and uncaring parent.
Throughout Rousseau’s portrayal of this first presocial stage, he clearly deplores society’s rules and limits because they, supposedly, obstruct the desires and freedoms of men. Isolation allows for independence of mind and spirit—living freely as one pursues nothing more than survival of the species. Competition between individuals for money, status, and property are eliminated when savage man lives and dies “without others noticing that they have ceased to exist and almost without noticing it themselves” (Rousseau, 84). But reverting to primitive and wild ways, after developing as a society for hundreds of years, cannot be done easily. We cannot simply rid ourselves of all responsibilities and desires as we don our loincloths and take to the wilds, and thus, Rousseau has provided an intermediary stage of human development between the presocial and modern man known as the golden age of “infant man.”
Rousseau’s stage of Infant Man consists of hunter-gatherers, where the adoption of natural concern for the preservation of the individual then modulates to become a concern for the preservation and safety of the “clan.” Rousseau, however, criticizes this state for the pride that Man naturally develops for his community, ergo turning into pride of one’s self. Man becomes more concerned, ultimately, with his own private advantage, either by force (if he is strong) or by cunning (if he is physically weak). The “love of happiness” that characterizes the nomadic existence thus transforms into one of self-interest and “the sole motive of human action” (Rousseau, 111). According to Rousseau, this leads to all manner of problems. Man begins to refer to assets as his own personal “possessions” and “properties”: once a value has been placed on certain objects, he must fight and defend his “right” to these properties, leading to quarrels and battles even within his own community. Rousseau argues that it is during this intermediary stage that the first idea of a “family” arises: this is now my family, my wife, my children. However, Okin demonstrates that Rousseau lacks consistency in his teachings, a common theme already mentioned. By previously claiming that savage men and women are naturally equal, there would be no reason for either sex to become subordinate without extreme force and thus enslavement and inequality. She finds that:
Suddenly, in a single paragraph, and virtually without explanation, [Rousseau] postulates “a first revolution,” in which, together with rudimentary tools and the first huts, which together constituted “a sort of property,” appears the very first cohabitation, in the form of the monogamous nuclear family. Suddenly, also without justification, he introduces a complete division of labor between the sexes. Whereas previously the way of life of the two sexes had been identical, now “women became more sedentary and grew accustomed to tend the hut and the children, while the man went to seek their common subsistence.” This division of labor, of course, meant that the entire female half of the species was no longer self-sufficient, and since it had been this very self-sufficiency which had been the guarantee of the freedom and equality that characterized the original state of nature, one might expect, though one will not find, some commentary on the inequality which has thus been established (Okin, 112-113).
If Rousseau were in fact the feminist theorist that some critics claim he is, his definition of “Natural Woman” should not shift depending on the characteristics he believes women ought to possess without grievance. The authenticity and equality of women should not depend on the subjective perspective that Rousseau demands upon the women of his society through the regulation of their education (as seen in Émile) or their forced subordination to both their husbands and the entirety of society’s men.
The role of Woman in this slightly more modern scenario is treated with ambiguity. She is necessary for the security and continuation of the family unit, but she is also—because now a possession—always in jeopardy of being lost or stolen away. It is only during this stage of “mutual” attachment “that conjugal and parental love come into existence,” and furthermore, that the distinction between the sexes comes into stark contrast (Rousseau, 112). According to Rousseau, the woman becomes more sedentary; the man more active but he quickly begins to “soften in body and mind” as he desires conjugal love and other possessions. This ultimately degenerates into real “wants” and, consequently, men are “unhappy in losing their possessions without being happy in possessing them” (Rousseau, 113). Intimate relationships within families cause Man, according to Rousseau, to “shake off [his] original wildness” but in so doing, he becomes a slave to passions and desires that are fatal to happiness and innocence (Rousseau, 113). Man begins to aspire towards achieving merit and esteem, or beauty and value, and these goals ultimately result in the downfall of natural Man—jealousy, vanity, and contempt replace true contentment and self-sufficiency.
In this intermediary stage of Infant Man, Woman continually remains without subjectivity, agency, or equality. Does she have the right to go out and own property? Does she have rights as a mother to raise her own children? I would argue not. During this second section of the Discourse, Rousseau makes the case that men have become “slaves” to their ambition, and this eventually leads to the degeneration of society, to unrest, division, and torment (Rousseau, 119). He also states that this is a result of “the loss of natural pity and compassion.” We should recall from our earlier discussion that pity was the provenance of the maternal realm, so it could be argued that this role of the Mother as the embodiment of pity is now diminishing as well, just as other aspects originally ascribed to the natural are also degenerating. Or is Rousseau, yet again, focusing exclusively on the male subject, and leaving the true role of Woman or Mother unaddressed in this problematic intermediary stage?
The concept of family as a “little society,” and an “unnatural” one at that, becomes the basis of Rousseau’s argument in which he sees this hunter-gatherer stage as a precursor to the full demise of civilization (Rousseau, Discourse, fn. L, 163). On one hand he seems to extoll the “sweet sentiments” that are brought about by family life, but on the other hand, he also claims this as the stage in which ownership, property and self-preservation come to the forefront. Once again, it is striking to note that the male subject has agency in this family scenario—the man travels to acquire land, has children, and competes with his neighbors and fellow men for resources and riches. Does the mother have any true agency here? Even with respect to language, Rousseau claims that language progressed merely because as families began living in close proximity to each other, and as the children strayed farther from home, they needed to learn to communicate. Once again, the Mother seems to be left out of the realm of language and communication, relegated to the periphery of the discussion of family and merely a possession of the male subject.
Rousseau spends a tremendous amount of time in the second section of his Discourse discussing the last and final stage of human development which he calls “civilized” or “modern” society. Within this stage, Modern Man experiences self-interest, competition, weakness, and in sum, inequality to a degree that leaves humanity with little choice but to suffer from the consequences of greed and rivalry. Rousseau’s discussion utilizes a notably gendered (sexist) language in that the Woman, who up to this point was lacking in true subjectivity, now becomes a focus for so much of his ire against the modern world. We see, for example, how Woman, who was once regarded as embodying the virtue of pity, in the degradation of the modern world, has now become a threatening force.
For example, in contrast to his notion of pity, there exists a natural sentiment that “moderates self-love,” contributes to the preservation of the species, and, according to Rousseau, is a fundamentally “ardent and impetuous” passion which “renders the sexes necessary to each other” (Rousseau, 102). Rousseau argues that this sentiment is a “terrible passion which braves all dangers, defies all obstacles and which in its fury seems liable to destroy the very human race it is meant to preserve” (Rousseau, 102). This sentiment is love. Love for Rousseau becomes an “unrestrained and brutal rage” and one which inspires “crimes” and “disorders” (Rousseau, 102). It is during this discussion of the brutal and destructive qualities of love that Woman makes an appearance in Rousseau’s argument and it is precisely here that she at last is given a sense of agency. Whereas in prior discussions she existed as either a maternal object or as a possession of nascent Man, here she comes to the fore, but not to be admired by Rousseau. Rather, she now seems to embody the very attributes that Rousseau despises in modern society. She has become a manipulator of man, a creator of an “unnatural” moral kind of love that engenders hostility, violence, deceit, and conflict:
Let us begin by distinguishing the moral from the physical in the sentiment of love. The physical is that general desire which propels one sex to unite with the other; the moral is that which shapes this desire and fixes it exclusively on one particular object, or at least gives the desire for the chosen object greater degree of energy. Now it is easy to see that the moral part of love is an artificial sentiment, born of usage in society, and cultivated by women with such skill and care in order to establish their empire over men, and so make dominant the sex that ought to obey (Rousseau, 102-03, emphasis added).
In disagreement to the representation of women in this passage, Voltaire succinctly responds by arguing that “Women are capable of doing everything we do: the only difference between them and us is that they are nicer (plus aimables)” (Rousseau quoting Voltaire, 179). Unfortunately, this more positive perception of women is not shared by Rousseau. He continues his barrage by declaring moral love an artificial invention created by women with the intent and purpose of enslaving men, allowing her to have dominance over him. The idea of love can only come into existence when notions of beauty and merit have infiltrated society to such an extent that Man, ever debased to care more and more for external values, becomes enthralled and weakened by the ensnaring sentiment of love. The role of Woman, which in the natural state was one of the passive, impersonal Mother has become the opposite: Woman is now threatening, coercive, manipulative, and ultimately destructive, for she holds the power and sway of love over men:
It is therefore an incontestable fact that it is only in society that even love, together with all of the passions, has acquired that impetuous ardour which so often renders it fatal to men… (Rousseau, 103, emphasis added).
We see in this final argument of the Discourse that Rousseau has departed from the ambivalent middle ground of nascent society and now sees modern society as evil and debased. He has flipped the binary opposition obvious in the first section of this work, so Woman is now characterized as strong, aggressive, dominant, demanding, while Man is weak, passive, dominated, and servile. I would argue that Rousseau changes narratives because he is trying to prove that modern society has now become unequal precisely because Man is now subservient and dependent rather than being independent and strong, like Natural Man. He also wants to show that modern society is degenerating from the effects of “civilized” culture, and especially through the idea of moral love, which is curated in the realm of manipulative and evil Woman. One can see plainly that as the power and influence of women reached new heights during the modern era, society began to disintegrate and succumb to the threatening and debasing influence, leading ultimately, in Rousseau’s view, to its demise, for “in becoming sociable and a slave, [man] grows feeble, timid, servile; and his soft and effeminate way of life completes the enervation both of his strength and his courage” (Rousseau, 86).
In recent years, Rousseau’s works have come under closer scrutiny, especially with regards to the role of Woman and her place within the familial and social realms advocated by Rousseau. The critical approaches taken are varied and far-reaching, encompassing feminist and anti-feminist stances, as well as a more moderate middle ground. In contrast to feminists such as Okin who see the negative undercurrents within Rousseau’s texts aimed towards women as well as the immutable, yet ignored inequality of the sexes, Mira Morgenstern interprets Rousseau with a different and more positive view. She attempts to read Rousseau’s political and fictional texts “on their own terms” (Morgenstern, “The Politics of Ambiguity: Self, Culture and Society in the Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vii) and in the course of pursuing a feminist interpretation “that unpacks the implications of Rousseau’s conclusions in a way that can ultimately prove liberating to women and to all of humanity” (Morgenstern, 215). Thus, she tries to find coherence in Rousseau’s apparent ambiguity within his argument, and she argues that there is a “strong revolutionary and hopeful strain” within Rousseau’s writings that “calls for engagement on the part of each individual precisely in order to engender authentic change in both the political and personal realms” (Morgenstern, 3). Far from being a defect of his thought, ambiguity in Rousseau’s work is seen as providing “the key to the meaning of life” (Morgenstern, 3). This is a rather confusing assertion considering typical ambiguity in one’s life causes confusion and uncertainty, and within Rousseau, women lack a certainty in their own nature for he describes them in many contradictory statements. However, Morgenstern does note that difficulties arise between the individual’s struggle for a sense of Self within the broader social community that calls for uniformity and communalism. And she recognizes that this balancing act is precarious, especially for women in a patriarchal society: “Consequently,” Morgenstern concludes, “the greatest threat to the achievement of authenticity—particularly where women are concerned—is the ability of inauthenticity to masquerade as its opposite (i.e., authenticity) and therefore potentially to doom all of humanity to perpetrate its own moral and spiritual destruction” (Morgenstern, 6-7).
As Morgenstern reads the Discourse—in particular, the “civilized” yet degenerate stage of modern man—she believes Rousseau is demonstrating what can happen when one chooses “inauthentic” paths in life. But she also argues that Rousseau shows to the reader, especially through his fictional works, another way to reach authenticity, and this is through the family which can “nurture whatever embers of authenticity might exist within an inauthentic world” (Morgenstern, 179). Because women as mothers are the locus around which the family revolves, Morgenstern argues that Rousseau places women as mediators between the private and public spheres, thus giving them a sense of authenticity and agency, but as Morgenstern notes, there are obviously many obstacles that still stand in the way of true subjectivity for women. Despite the fact that Rousseau assigns to women the task of teaching personal authenticity to their children, and for transmitting to their children an ethic that would also make them good citizens of the polis as adults (Morgenstern, 212), she also notes that there are several obstacles that stand in the way of their fulfillment of these tasks: firstly, women’s own training leave them without a clear sense of Self; and, secondly, women’s education is not geared to affairs of public importance so they cannot teach this to their children. In actuality, as we see in Rousseau’s novels, women’s options boil down to a choice between self-imposed subservience or being torn apart by the contradictions and impossibility of what they are asked to do. Rather than seeing this conundrum as the ultimate doom of the family or social life, Morgenstern sees it as offering “a handbook for the options that can be actualized in inauthentic times” (Morgenstern, 215). She goes so far as to state:
Rousseau’s analysis of the possibilities of authentic transformation in an inauthentic world underlines an important source of hope for the future realization of his theory. That is Rousseau’s sense that the root of transformation and revolution lies not with philosophical theories or political power, but rather in the concrete minutiae of everyday life. This is particularly clear within the context of women’s experiences. […Rousseau’s] empowerment of women—emphasizing the personal and domestic roots of the coming political upheaval—reflects the importance of the seemingly trivial to Rousseau’s understanding of the forces that move history (Morgenstern, 215).
In summary, we can see how different feminist critics come to very different conclusions on how to interpret Rousseau. There are many other critics who take a different approach altogether and in fact who see the feminist perspective as falling into a delusional way of thinking. Emanuele Saccarelli, for example, in his article entitled, “The Machiavellian Rousseau: Gender and Family Relations,” argues that Rousseau is in fact writing with great irony rather than ambiguity when describing women as modest, sweet, and graceful, in his dedication to the Discourse (Saccarelli, 45-46). Furthermore, he argues that Rousseau’s intent was “to expose [women’s] unjust and catastrophic domestic rule” (Saccarelli, 483). Thus, in contrast to Morgenstern, who sees Rousseau give women an affirmative role in domestic and social life, Saccarelli states that Rousseau actually believed that women had a duplicitous nature and tricked men into civilization and family life (Saccarelli, 499). Rousseau had “a bitter hostility toward […] sinister matriarchy” (Saccarelli, 501) that according to Saccarelli cannot be ignored, and which must not be ignored according to Okin.
Rousseau’s ambiguity towards Woman’s role remains strong in my opinion because his fear, desire, and personal lack of power causes him to criticize women and their potential agency. While Morgenstern sees the promise in ambiguity, Rousseau’s perpetual indecision as to whether Woman is kind or evil, strong or weak, mother or temptress, independent or dependent leaves no room for any woman to exist as she is. Okin’s essay confirms my belief by discussing a multitude of Rousseau’s texts and displaying his entirely hypocritical doctrine used to force women and girls into roles of submission and inequality. He manipulates, disregards, and penalizes women for their actions, regardless of what role they “choose” for themselves, with no option of redemption or freedom. To claim that Rousseau hopes to further female equality is, in my opinion, a losing battle. His misogynistic writing ought to disillusion any feminist of the possibility that Rousseau values female life as individual—to him, she is not unique, intelligent, or valuable. She is barely more than a possession.
In this paper, I have analyzed Rousseau’s perception of Woman throughout his three stages of humankind: Woman is cast as a maternal object during the presocial; during the stage of “infant man” she becomes property for a man to own and control; yet in modern society she is condemned for becoming a domineering manipulator after possessing her own subjectivity. It is clear that Rousseau’s subtle refusal to grant Woman equal subjectivity disproves that humanity ever lived fairly and equally at all. He criticizes modern society so fervently, in my opinion, because his privileges as an educated man feel threatened when women begin taking equal roles in society. Although Rousseau claims that the presocial is the natural and equal state of humans, this essay’s purpose has been to refute this idea by proving Rousseau’s inherently sexist biases subsequently invalidate his own claims of equality for all.
Works Cited
Morgenstern, Mira. The Politics of Ambiguity: Self, Culture and Society in the Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Ann Arbor: Princeton University, 1990. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/dissertations-theses/politics-ambiguity-self-culture-society-works/docview/303878123/se-2?accountid=14656. Accessed 22 Apr. 2021.
Okin, Susan M. The Natural Woman and her Role. In Women in Western Political Thought (pp. 106-139). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. doi:10.2307/j.ctt24hq74.11. Accessed 20 Apr. 2021.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. A Discourse on Inequality. Translated by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin Classics, 1984.
Saccarelli, Emanuele. “The Machiavellian Rousseau: Gender and Family Relations in The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.” Political Theory, vol. 37, no. 4, 2009, pp. 482–510. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/25655496. Accessed 20 Apr. 2021.