Rousseau and sexual difference

If Rousseau, who wanted to be a man of paradoxes rather than prejudices, attracted all kinds of criticism on many subjects, as virulent as they were contradictory, his position on sexual difference was and remains scandalous. It must be said that it is rare for a philosopher and a writer to have tried to think it. Emile's sentences thus resonate like provocations: “In the union of the sexes, each contributes equally to the common object, but not in the same way. From this diversity arises the first assignable difference between the moral relations of the one and the other. One must be active and strong, the other passive and weak: it is necessary that one wants and can, it is enough that the other resists little”. What attitude to adopt? We will try to investigate the question by taking two complementary positions: paying as much attention as possible to the…