An androgynous observer in the eighteenth century press: la spectatrice1728-29

Abstract

The interest of the English Spectator and its followers in women's education and in the formulation and propagation of the Western ideology of femininity is widely acknowledged. Nevertheless, the genre also engendered experiments with alternative views about women.La Spectatriceis an example of a periodical which resisted the very ideals codified by the genre it followed. This article attempts to fill a gap in the study of the spectatorial press, by analysing the tone and the content of this putative female spectator, and by stressing the innovative contributions of this French periodical to the spectator genre.