The Modernity Of Rousseau's Women's Education

Women education ideas of Rousseau not only shows the contradiction and contact between modernity and him, marking the modern transformation of the female, but also presents in a more fundamental sense the irreversible destiny of human. Studying on the educational thoughts of Rousseau, the first thing to think about is why he chose this topic. From a macro point of view, the rising of women of the Age of Enlightenment pulled out some problems, for example, women were no longer bounded to family, they didn't do their duty as a good mother any longer,and the families were falling down and so on, these aroused the attention of Rousseau about the female education, which shows his alert and worry about the modern structure of both sexes. In microcosm,that was the factors of his own. Mrs. Warren, Dai Laisi,etc, those women had a great influence on his life,.He was loved by women, and he was distressed because of women as well. He longed for the perfect woman. Therefore, Rousseau arranged a woman- Sophie to present in the fifth volume of "Emile", and provided the ideal education for her.Rousseau set up a field for women education, that is the family community which based on love and respect. On the one hand, he placed great emphasis on the importance of family. In his view, the family is a unit of the country.Only the family is happiness will the country be stable and prosperous.On the other hand, he criticized the society. Society is the source of evil, while the family is warm and peaceful. In the family community, the mother should take an unshakable duty to educate the daughter. First of all,Physical education begins from the day when the daughter was born. A good body means a good spirit. Second, men and women are born to obtain the character, so moral education is the most important. By watching and listening to their mothers, girls cultivate virtues subtly,such as gentleness,modesty,courtesy,cleanliness,chastity and rationality. Third, the girl has the practical rationality, they do not have the ability to find the purpose of practice. Therefore in the religious education, the best way is determining the faith for them as soon as possible.Then,let them understand: "justification by faith". Fourth, the purpose of women education is to cultivate a "woman", not a "man", therefore, the aesthetic education should teach women how to behave gracefully,speak nicely and walk airily and so on. Fifth, the career of women is to manage the family,so they must accept marriage and love education and understand the importance of love and marriage.Sixth, the main thing of women is keeping house, so they should get the practical intelligence education.From the educational thoughts, we can analyze and summarize that the influence of Rousseau on modernity is a contradiction: reversal and propulsion. For the former, when the Enlightenment thinkers, such as Voltaire, Diderot, advocated the equality between men and women, Rousseau had different views. On the one hand, he insisted that there are differences between men and women, so he opposed the absolute equality.On the other hand, he tried to rescue women's vocation to resist the self-effacement of women. For the latter, although,in some aspects, Rousseau tried to return to the ancient, in fact,he didn't achieve the abstinence and sobriety of ancient. He payed attention to women's rights, and he also attached great importance to the feeling.On the contrary,he sped up the process of modernity. Thus, Rousseau became the target of feminism. He exists paradoxically.Finally, it is worth noting that Rousseau's education thoughts have the important meaning to the modern women education. This is not to say that just figure out what Rousseau said,or,just study whether his specific educational measures are practical and effective or not, but he let us consider the following questions: gender inequality, is it possible? Thus,according to this order: the demise of modern women education——asking what is the meaning of female——exploring the vocation of women, we continue to study.