“ Women should not be strong like men but for them, so that their sons may be strong. ”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (1762). copy citation
| Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
|---|---|
| Source | Emile, or On Education |
| Topic | women |
| Date | 1762 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Barbara Foxley |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5427/pg5427-images.html |
Context
“not that these qualities should be peculiar to either sex, but that their relative values should be different. Women should be strong enough to do anything gracefully; men should be skilful enough to do anything easily.
The exaggeration of feminine delicacy leads to effeminacy in men. Women should not be strong like men but for them, so that their sons may be strong. Convents and boarding-schools, with their plain food and ample opportunities for amusements, races, and games in the open air and in the garden, are better in this respect than the home, where the little girl is fed on delicacies, continually encouraged or reproved, where she is kept sitting in a stuffy room, always under her mother's eye, afraid to stand or walk or speak or breathe, without a moment's freedom to play or jump or run or shout, or to be her natural, lively, little self;”
source
