Investigate Analyse and compare the texts. Who are the authors? What are the main ideas of each text? What conclusions can you draw? Think. Why did many Enlightenment thinkers assign women a traditional role in society? DISCUSS. Why did Enlightenment women attach such importance to women's education? Today, more than 120 million children worldwide do not attend school; more than half of them are girls. What effects will this have on their adult life? Women of the Enlightenment in Spain Enlightenment ideas also spread amongst some of the Spanish noblewomen . The Countess-Duchess of Benavente (13) organised gatherings in which the guests discussed new literature from France. She was also one of the presidents of the Junta de Damas, a section of the Real Sociedad Económica Matritense de Amigos del País. The society organised training for female prisoners and women of the disadvantaged groups so they could learn a trade, such as spinning or weaving. Josefa Amar y Borbón also belonged to this society. She advocated equality between men and women , and an education system for women that included languages, histor y, drawing, music and crafts. Josefa de Jovellanos, (12) wrote poems in Asturian (Bable) and sponsored a school for girls from poor families in Gijón . María Isidra de Guzmán, (14) is known as "the doctor of Alcalá" because she was the first woman to obtain a degree from that university. 12. Josefa de Jovellanos 13. The Countess-Duchess of Benavente 14. María Isidra de Guzmán The state, parents and , what is more, even the women themselves, have an indifferent attitude towards learning things, or do not learn anything. […] What do men gain from women's ignorance? Because when it comes to married life, there might not be harmony between an educated man and an ignorant woman . Women are just as subject to the obligations common to ever y individual as men are. […] There is no difference between the two sexes and therefore both need competent instruction . Josefa Amar y Borbón, Discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres, 1790 (Adapted) The whole education of women ought to be relative to men . To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honoured by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown , to council them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them – these are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught to them from their infancy. Therefore, to cultivate in women the qualities of the men and to neglect those that are their own is, then , obviously to work to their detriment. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762 (Adapted) 21
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