ABSTRACT
One of the most important questions raised by these texts is that of where these women write from. What debates have enabled their critique of sexual power relations? I want to single out four such debates which are recurrently evident in the passages here, though their terms necessarily shift in the course of the century. These are: philosophical rationalism; debates about the nature of political
authority; debates about women’s education (cf. Section 3); and responses to anti-female satire.
