Women, religion, and education in the 18th century. illustration from a gender perspective

Abstract

This article was made based on an analysis structured from a gender perspective, the influence of religion and traditional beliefs on men and women and their foray into humanist and enlightened thought of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as their influence on the advance and / or retreat of educational reforms / revolutions originated as a result of the European Enlightenment. Especially connected to the institutionalization and extension of literacy and universal schooling (that is, of men and women) extended to the popular classes on one hand, and on the other to the formation of the elites that the new regime demands. In this article I also cover the main contradictions that the gender vision raises in the new postulates of the enlightened Europeans and the concept of citizen-ship and the role that Education has in the formation of citizens were also addressed. "Citizens" (nonexistent in those times). The methodology used was qualitative, carrying out a theoretical anal-ysis on the subject of illustration from a gender perspective and a bibliography related to the sub-ject was consulted, the object of the study is contextualized historically, through the interpretation of the different concepts used. Finally, the main result was that women were neither considered in the Renaissance nor in the Enlightenment period a subject of law (neither social nor political nor, in this case, educational) and their right to education was recognized, both as it served to socialize them in their sole role of mothers and wives, and make them more efficient in it. In this way, the emergence of new ideas that questioned dogmas and traditional beliefs regarding the role of wom-en was limited and with it, the opening to truly universal free thought (men and women), in order to maintain either the dogmas of faith, traditional thought or the new enlightened concept of "the natural."