197. - Women

Summary

Spinoza’s remarks on women are disappointing. In his TP, he declares that daughters should never be permitted to assume the throne (TP6.37). In democracies, Spinoza insists, women, like servants or criminals, should be excluded from civic participation (TP11.3–4). Some commentators interpret him to exclude women only by virtue of their social conditioning or historical circumstances (Lloyd 1994; Lord 2011). Yet, Spinoza defends his exclusion of women at some length, arguing, in contrast to his feminist contemporaries, that women’s inferiority must be explained by nature rather than custom. Other interpreters thus contend that Spinoza unequivocally denies women’s equality, although this appears to contradict his understanding of human nature and rationality (Gullan-Wuhr 2008; Sharp 2012).