WorldViews. The World in Textbooks

The Württembergian theater director and court poet, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791), published the article Educated Vixens in his literary magazine Vaterlandschronik in the first half of 1789. Therein the author criticizes female scholarship, which according to his point of view has expanded throughout Europe in circles of high nobility and among the upper middle class. His perception of women is consistent with the traditional perception of the woman’s role being that of wife, mother and housekeeper. Schubart utilizes the concept of Europe geographically. Indeed the text implicates an even wider European reference when the author declares that this development was throughout Europe during the era of Enlightenment, namely in the public space of a republic of letters.

The document was published in the history textbook Geschichte und Geschehen that was designed for the use at theupper level of secondary school in Germany.It is incorporated into the two-page sub-chapter: Enlightenment: Freedom and Equality – For Women Too? and is the last article in the large thematic section on the modern state in absolutism and in the Enlightenment.