"Napoleon and the Woman Question: Discourses of ..." Topic

…the Other Sex in French Education, Medicine, and Medical Law, 1799-1815 by June K. Burton.

"Napoleon and the Woman Question is a project that June Burton has been working on for "twenty-odd" years; a version of one chapter was first published in 1983. While she does not engage with the most recent literature on the period, she has been a pioneer in calling attention to the importance of women in the Napoleonic era and to associated medical, educational, and legal discourses. Readers looking for a new theoretical approach to the history of sexuality will likely be disappointed; instead, Burton offers suggestive anecdotes and case studies. The book's subtitle indicates well the themes and structure of the book. Burton begins in chapter 1 with Napoleon Bonaparte's view that all women should be baby-machines but also contends that he associated this role with power. Napoleon's perspective was shaped in part by his personal experiences, especially the influence of his Corsican mother, a strong widow who raised eight children, and the birth of his own son, which threatened the life of the Empress Marie-Louise. Burton also links Napoleon's ideas to the eighteenth-century philosopher Julien de La Mettrie's conception of the body as machine. Burton looks in detail at education. In chapter 2 she surveys the ideas of male and female pedagogues and looks closely at several schools, particularly that run by Madame Campan. She is especially interested in the 1805 decision to create a national education establishment for girls and, later, an official journal of education…"
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Amicalement
Armand

The relevance of this eludes my senile mentality.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand