ABSTRACT
Despite the considerable volume of work regarding Marie de Gournay which has appeared to date, much remains to be done. This chapter focuses on the linguistic and rhetorical strategies she deploys in her refutation of male claims to rational superiority which have not received adequate attention to date. Through a disarticulation of scholastic theory, and drawing on a range of diverse historical, philosophical, and biblical sources, the author of égalite des hommes et des femmes (1622) and Grief des dames (1626) proves that no laws—natural, political or religious—admit of any differences between men and women, since the main attribute of human beings is the rational soul. In this context, she conceptualises her own idea of “the unity of the sexes.”
