The Role of Women in the Enlightenment

After reading about women's influence during the Enlightenment,  it struck me how successfully some educated and informed women were able to unite men of different beliefs and ideas in a Parisian salon, and not only participate, but preside over these thoughtful meetings.   The select few women that took such a role as leaders in these salons enabled  some of the most significant growth during the Enlightenment because they were able to bring together the greatest thinkers and debaters of the time and acted as mediators between the public and the elite.  Their female gender alone created a more peaceful and polite conversation among men who perhaps could have created a heated debate.  In these salons, free speech was also encouraged, which created a more open environment where ideas could be  created and discussed without censorship or controversy.  However, salonnières such as Madame Geoffrin kept their religious beliefs intact during discussion, which  kept conversation within boundaries of the time.  Although these women had a very significant role because they were the "glue" that held the salons together, the Enlightenment was not a progressive time for women as a whole because roles as salonnières were only available to the select few who were educated, wealthy, and sociable enough to preside.  The salonnières were also ultimately limited by their lesser education because they could not participate as fully as their more highly educated peers, men.  Not to mention, the common masses, which made up the largest percentage of the population, were left out of  salon activity all together.  The only way ordinary people could access the latest in philosophical thinking was through cheap pamphlets.  Women could be almost completely eliminated from that group because they had very little education, if any at all.  Even women of the highest social standings did not have much educational opportunities available to them because of their gender.  Although some philosophes believed that education for women marked a society's progression(mostly French), Europe at large still held a similar belief as the Swiss Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued that women essentially belonged in the kitchen, and their sole purpose was to please their husbands in a typical subservient fashion.  Montesquieu  confirmed negative feelings about women: that female aristocrats used their sexuality to obtain power amongst their male superiors, which he argued was the cause of corruption in government systems.  So, all forward-thinking philosophes who tried to make education more available to women did not influence the time significantly because the popular belief that Rousseau and Montesquieu shared about women hindered progress in women's equality.   Also, more rights for women did not mean equality to men.  They still maintained a subordinate role in matters of education and political standing.  ALthough the Enlightenment was able to create progression for elite women,  all women were not able to benefit from the activity of the salons and academies because their access and education was limited.