Revisiting Tocqueville’s American Woman

• Main Author: HENDERSON, Christine Rodman
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Alexis de Tocqueville; women; soft despotism; tyranny of the majority; liberalism; equality; adaptive preferences; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/124
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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 extended sketch of the “faded” pioneer wife in “A Fortnight in the Wilderness” an...