Abstract

Because Rousseau always gives priority to his self over the selves of others this study employs a Freudian perspective. Some parallels between Rousseauian and Freudian social theories are made explicit; for example, viewing the social contract as masculine superego. Freudian and psychoanalytic concepts by other theorists, particularly Klein and Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, are utilized in regards to Rousseau's viewing of Sophie and Emile as fetishes. ;A review of feminist critics of Rousseau is undertaken with special focus on the writings of Zillah Eisenstein, Susan Okin, and Carole Pateman. Most, if not all, feminists argue that Rousseau wants to harm all women, or woman's nature, to save man. I argue instead that Rousseau wants to kill only the unnatural passions in both sexes, but especially those in woman since he sees her as primarily responsible for the corruption of man. ;Rousseau's misogyny is the key to understanding his social philosophy. Rousseau blames the corruption of man specifically on the wiles of societal women. Rousseau thus divides his understanding of woman into good natural woman and tainted social woman, just as he does with man. ;Rousseau thinks that social woman is more skillful in "the moral element of love" than social man. This artificial element is employed by woman to make her the "preferred" sexual object, although nature had intended for her "to obey." Compounding this undesirable situation is the fact that woman is now venturing into politics. This makes corrupt woman more important to Rousseau's social theory than man. And since Julie in La Nouvelle Heloise is his only developed example of corrupt social woman, this work is the most important to understanding his politics. ;Ideally when man left the state of nature he should have followed his reason. Yet the "impulse of appetite" turned social man into social woman's "slave." Obedience to self-imposed laws that kill the passions in both sexes is therefore "freedom." This is the most critical factor in the new social contract followed only by laws that exclude women from politics