Revisiting Tocqueville’s American Woman

• In Event: Reading Feminine Exclusions Back Into the Canon (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

This paper revisits Tocqueville’s famous portrait of the American female, which begins with assertions of her equality to males, but ends with her self-cloistering in the domestic sphere. Taking a cue from Tocqueville’s sketch of the sad pioneer wife, I argue that the American girl’s ostensibly free choice to remove herself from public life is not an act of freedom; rather it is a manifestation of a particular form of tyrannical majoritarianism. Having argued that her choice is coerced rather than free, the paper then inquires into the consequences of this for democracy. Tocqueville casts women as the guardians of mores and preservers of a democracy in which liberty and equality can be healthily combined, but if the choice to assume that role of mores guardian is coerced rather than free, democracy itself would appear to rest upon unfree foundations. Does democracy similarly depend upon continued coercion for its survival, and if so, what are the consequences for Tocqueville’s providential account of democracy’s spread?

Author

• Christine Dunn Henderson, Singapore Management University