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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Women in Patriotic Societies: A Spanish Debate in a European Context

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This chapter examines in its European context the discussions maintained from 1776 to 1787 over the admission of women to the Economic Society of Madrid, one of the patriotic societies founded in the eighteenth century and representative of Enlightened reforming ideals and models of sociability. The debate assumed a wide resonance and was seen by contemporaries as a turning point, opening up no less than a “political revolution. It was connected, to a larger extent than has been acknowledged up to now, to European discussions about the nature of gender difference, women’s education and their access to public spaces (academies, literary, scientific and reforming societies. Taking place in a period when the country was vindicating its place in European modernity, the participants in this polemic were aware that these were passionately discussed issues internationally. They used arguments taken from —either unconsciously or deliberately— a common pool of Enlightenment discourses and brandished the examples of women admitted into literary, scientific, and artistic societies in other countries to call for emulation. But they also claimed that Spain could set an even more advanced example and become the model to be imitated, by making women’s admission to enlightened institutions the rule instead of the exception. Horizon 2020/ERC-2017-Advanced Grant-787015 This chapter examines in its European context the discussions maintained from 1776 to 1787 over the admission of women to the Economic Society of Madrid, one of the patriotic societies founded in the eighteenth century and representative of Enlightened reforming ideals and models of sociability. The debate assumed a wide resonance and was seen by contemporaries as a turning point, opening up no less than a “political revolution. It was connected, to a larger extent than has been acknowledged up to now, to European discussions about the nature of gender difference, women’s education and their access to public spaces (academies, literary, scientific and reforming societies. Taking place in a period when the country was vindicating its place in European modernity, the participants in this polemic were aware that these were passionately discussed issues internationally. They used arguments taken from —either unconsciously or deliberately— a common pool of Enlightenment discourses and brandished the examples of women admitted into literary, scientific, and artistic societies in other countries to call for emulation. But they also claimed that Spain could set an even more advanced example and become the model to be imitated, by making women’s admission to enlightened institutions the rule instead of the exception.