"Je sais qu'il y a eu des hommes qui ont fait jaillir le lait de leurs mamelles" [that is, "I know that there have been men who have brought forth milk from their breasts."]--Diderot (1754) Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature PENSÉES SUR L'INTERPRÉTATION DE LA NATURE, 56. [I thank Charles T. Wolfe for locating the passage; and his general insistence that Diderot (recall) ought not be neglected.--ES]
This post was inspired by reading some unpublished papers by Sandrine Berges, who is a leading authority on the political philosophy of Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy. Prof. Berges points out that in contrast to Rossseau and Wollstonecraft, De Grouchy rejects the close link between birthing and nursing in her (1797) Letters on Sympathy, which De Grouchy attached to her translation of Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. De Grouchy's move opens up the possibility of recognizing nursing as a distinct and politically significant activity that can be valued (morally, politically, and economically) by society within the division of labor. In fact, if Diderot is right, nursing need not be a gender-specific activity. Motherhood, thus, need not confine women to domestic careers.
The epigraph to this post is offered in the context of Diderot's critical undermining of final causes as well as his criticism of the ideologies and cultural prejudices latent in and presupposed by medical science. Diderot's claim about male lactation was echoed by Darwin in The Descent of Man (the whole passage is worth reading [I became aware of the issue by way of Jared Diamond]). It is not uncommon to criticize Diderot for his treatment of female hysteria. Even so, as Diderot explored the plasticity of nature, he prepared the way for a non-essentializing feminism defended by Condorcet and De Grouchy.
Recent Comments