Description: "This book, the first of two volumes, is the first study of its kind devoted to an analysis of the debate concerning government by women in seventeenth-century France. Drawing on a wide range of political and feminist texts, it sets out to demonstrate that the dominant discourse which upholds patriarchy at the time is frequently in conflict with alternative discourses which frame gynaecocracy as a feasible, and laudable reality, and which reconfigure (wittingly or unwittingly) the normative paradigm of male authority. Central to the argument is an analysis of how the discourse which constructs government as a male prerogative quite simply implodes when juxtaposed with the traditional political discourse of virtue ethics. The study draws on the existing work concerning queenship but innovates in its focus on the literary, feminist, and philosophical representations of female governance in France"--
Review Quotes:
"In this innovative study, Derval Conroy documents and analyzes the political debate concerning female governance in seventeenth-century France. ... Ruling Women, written in an engaging and accessible style, present scholars, teachers, and students alike with a formidable resource to explore representations of queenship in seventeenth-century France. With this work Conroy makes an invaluable contribution to the study of women and gender issues in early modern Europe." (Kathleen M. Llewellyn, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 70 (1), 2017)