All Men and Both Sexes : Gender, Politics, and the False Universal in England, 1640–1832

This is an exploration of such universal terms as "people", "man" or "human" in early modern England, from the Civil War through the Enlightenment. Such language falsely implies inclusion of both men and women when actually it excludes women. Recent scholarship has focused on the "Rights of Man" doctrine form the Enlightenment and the French Revolution as explanation for women's exclusion from citizenship. Accoring to Hilda Smith, we need to go back further, to the English Revolution and the more grounded (but equally restricted) values tied to the "free-born Englishman". Citing educational treatises, advice literature to young people, guild records, popular periodicals, and parliamentary debates, she demonstrates how the "male maturation process" came to define the qualities attached to citizenship and responsible adulthood, which in turn became the basis for modern individualism and liberalism.

All Men and Both Sexes explores the use of such universal terms as "people," "man," or "human" in early modern England, from the civil war through the Enlightenment. Such language falsely implies inclusion of both men and women when actually it excludes women. Recent scholarship has focused on the Rights of Man doctrine from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution as explanation for women’s exclusion from citizenship. According to Hilda Smith we need to go back further, to the English Revolution and the more grounded (but equally restricted) values tied to the "free born Englishman." Citing educational treatises, advice literature to young people, guild records, popular periodicals, and parliamentary debates, she demonstrates how the "male maturation process" came to define the qualities attached to citizenship and responsible adulthood, which in turn became the basis for modern individualism and liberalism. By the eighteenth century a new discourse of sensibility was describing women as dependent beings outside the state, in a separate sphere and in need of protection. This excluded women from reform debates, forcing them to seek not an extension of a democratic franchise but a specific women’s suffrage focused on gender difference.

Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction: The Concept of the False Universal......Page 14 1 “Only of free Persons”: Male Maturation and the False Universal......Page 52 2 “Citizens of the same City . . . Brethren and Sisters”: Gender and Early Modern English Guilds......Page 86 3 “Acting His Own Part”: Gender, the Freeborn Englishman, and the Execution of Charles I......Page 122 4 “Interests of the Softer Sex”: Commercialism, Politics, and Gender in the Eighteenth Century......Page 148 Epilogue: "Masculine Gender . . . Taken to Include Females": Gender, Radical Politics, and the Reform Bill of ......Page 186 Conclusion......Page 216 Bibliography......Page 224 Index......Page 236 Back Cover......Page 249 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Preface and Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: The Concept of the False Universal 14 1 “Only of free Persons”: Male Maturation and the False Universal 52 2 “Citizens of the same City . . . Brethren and Sisters”: Gender and Early Modern English Guilds 86 3 “Acting His Own Part”: Gender, the Freeborn Englishman, and the Execution of Charles I 122 4 “Interests of the Softer Sex”: Commercialism, Politics, and Gender in the Eighteenth Century 148 Epilogue: "Masculine Gender . . . Taken to Include Females": Gender, Radical Politics, and the Reform Bill of  186 Conclusion 216 Bibliography 224 Index 236 Back Cover 249 0271021829,9780271021829 Pennsylvania State Univ 2002