Educating For Silence: Renaissance Women and the Language Arts∗

In: Hypatia: a journal of feminist philosophy, Band 4, Heft 1, S. 9-27

Abstract

In the Renaissance, educating for philosophy was integrated with educating for an active role in society, and both were conditioned by the prevailing educational theories based on humanist revisions of the trivium. I argue that women's education in the Renaissance remained tied to grammar while the education of men was directed toward action through eloquence. This is both a result of and a condition for the greater restriction on the social opportunities for women.