THE ARGUMENT

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Gabrielle Suchon’s most interesting and controversial view during her time was that women are both intellectually and spiritually equal to men. Her most important view is that women have a right to education, which is bestowed upon them by both God and the laws of nature. She argued that women’s lack of education was not because of a lack of intellectual ability of the female sex, rather it was simply because of women’s forced suboordination to men, specifically the chains of marriage, raising children, and the suppression that comes with religion. She believed that women’s oppression was a massive problem directly caused by men’s suppression of a woman’s rights to education and to be involved in the public sphere. First, her particular writing style employed in her works was unique to her out of all of the female participants of the Querelles Des Femmes (Eileen O’Neill, Disappearing Ink). This was a pre-feminist movement in France that took place between the 14th and 17th centuries in which writers debated the nature of womanhood, ultimately leading to a campaign for social change. She was the only woman who participated in the movement to write a treatise, employing a comprehensive and authoritative writing style. As Suchon writes, "since this book is new by its title and unprecedented by its content and subject matter, I sought to make the work incontestable by powerful reasoning rather than by polished discourse, which captivates the mind immediately but does not nourish it fully, which dazzles it momentarily before leaving it forever empty." (Gabrielle Suchon, Traité de la morale et de la politique, Preface to the Treatise). This is notable because at the time, the movement was almost entirely dominated by men trying to shut down the philosophical points of the female writers. Another one of the most striking aspects of Suchon’s work during this time was that she openly stated that her audience was women, rather than men. "My sole intention in this entire treatise has been to inspire generosity and magnanimity in persons of the sex so that they can protect themselves against servile constraint, stupid ignorance, and base and degrading dependence." (Gabrielle Suchon, Traité de la morale et de la politique, Preface to the Treatise). This is so interesting because during this time period, women were almost completely barred from participating in academics. 

Gabrielle Suchon’s writing was considered radical largely due to the suggestions she made regarding how women should go about relieving themselves from these oppressive norms. She of course argues that women take leave of the bonds that hold them down from their rights, meaning she condemned both marriage and motherhood  (Véronique Desnain, Militant Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century France) . First, Suchon addresses internalized misogyny before that term was even coined or used in common tongue, stating that women are also partly responsible for their oppression. She argues that this was because many of the women of the time had the same misogynistic ideas that men had ingrained in them from a very young age, and genuinely believed themselves to be intellectually inferior to men, and less capable of self-governance. As an unmarried and childfree woman, previously bound to the church, she offered very interesting perspectives to how common women could go about freeing themselves both in her Treatise de la Morale, and another one of her popular works, Du Celibat Voluntaire. Returning to her condemnation of marriage and childbearing, Suchon writes, "And since women, through the bonds of marriage, are subject to their husbands, attached to their children, and preoccupied by their servants and the pursuit of temporal possessions -prickly thorns indeed that cause inconceivable toil and difficulties- I will describe the happiness of free persons, exempt from such troubles." (Gabrielle Suchon, Du célibat volontaire, Foreword) as a preface to her chosen lifestyle, which she continues on to describe. Suchon was an advocate of celibacy, arguing that choosing such was an effective way for women to gain autonomy from men in order to pursue intellectual freedom. Suchon considered this a life, “unfettered by social constraints,” arguing that celibacy is not only accessible to women of all social statuses, but also extremely beneficial to a woman's life in regards to her overall happiness and ability to participate in the best parts of society. Suchon writes that celibate women “are content with the power of choice they have without ever exercising it; they esteem all other conditions but nonetheless prefer their own, which they know is uniquely suited and altogether necessary to them." (Gabrielle Suchon, Du célibat volontaire, Foreword). She calls herself a “neutralist,” a term she coined for herself being a celibate woman devoted to God.

In fact, religion plays a major role throughout all of Suchon’s writings. As a prior nun, Suchon uses religion in two aspects of her argument. The first, and most prominent in her Treatise, is that God created men and women equally with the intention that they be free and rational thinkers. She calls the oppression of women a perversion of God’s will, stating that when they are denied authority, they are prevented from effectively following the laws God puts in place for how we ought to act. She uses natural and divine law to further her point that if women are not able to pursue a better intellectual standpoint, then they are held back spiritually from becoming closer to God as a whole, and are less able to access religious texts (Gabrielle Suchon, Traité de la morale et de la politique). 

The second role that religion plays in her argument is more relevant to her work, Du Célibat Volontaire. By becoming a neutralist, she argues that women are better able to devote themselves and their lives to God. "If cloistered persons cherish books that speak of religious life, it is likewise fitting that this treatise on voluntary celibacy belongs specifically to Neutralists. It is to those generous souls-who devote themselves wholly to serving God, helping their neighbor, and improving themselves ever more- that I present this work." (Gabrielle Suchon, Du célibat volontaire, Foreword). By freeing themselves from the patriarchal chains that bar them from education, women are able to pursue their own intellectual and spiritual nature. Since a main point of her argument for a women’s right to an education is that society is worse off when it is deprived of great female thinkers and leaders, Suchon names it of utmost importance that women take hold of their freedom from men and find their way to a more educated,  and therefore Godly, lifestyle (Gabrielle Suchon, Traité de la morale et de la politique).