The notion of Enlightenment in Juana Manso’s feminist writings

ZORRILLA, NATALIA LORENA

Conferencia; CIRGEN Conference ?Gender, Modernities and The Global Enlightenment?; 2022

CIRGEN (Universidad de Valencia)

This paper aims at examining the feminist writings of Juana Manso (1819-1875), focusing on her interpretation of the notion of Enlightenment as a philosophical and socio-political emancipatory project. We seek to analyze both the theoretical and the practical aspects of Manso’s “Ilustración de la mujer”.A self-taught writer, translator, and intellectual born in Buenos Aires, Manso sought to foster the diffusion of egalitarian ideas on gender and to fight for the emancipation of women. Manso’s defense of women’s rights was founded on the belief in women’s moral and intellectual autonomy, the asexual nature of the soul, and the universality of reason –thus echoing some of the thesis and proclaims of (European) early modern pro-women thinkers and Enlightenment ‘feminism’. Like the philosophes, Manso firmly believed that the use of reason and the subsequent advancement of science and philosophy were effective weapons against prejudice, which she employed to debunk widespread misogynistic claims about women’s inferiority.Manso’s enlightenment of women entailed not only the production of essays which argued in favor of women’s rights but also the education of women in philosophical and theoretical themes. Key to her activism was the publication strategy she deployed to articulate her outlook on women’s emancipation. She founded and/or directed the following periodicals: O Jornal das senhoras (1852), Álbum de señoritas (1854), La Flor del Aire (1864, with Eduarda Mansilla), and La Siempre Viva (1864). These periodicals specifically targeted a wide female audience with the purpose of “enlightening” (ilustrar) their readers, and thus caused quite a stir in the public sphere. The objective of this paper is to show that Manso’s reception and understanding of the notion of Enlightenment greatly impacted her intellectual work, not only theoretically but also practically, concerning her publishing strategy.