Women intellectuals and intellectual history: Their paradigmatic separation

This article integrates an exploration of intellectual history as a specialty within broader historical scholarship, its long-term omission of women and gender issues, and an analysis of the writings of early modern women, in order to suggest how the latter provide insights into current shortcomings within intellectual history. It points to the nature of intellectual history and the blinders it places on the intellectual contributions of women: a focus on paradigms that posit universal qualities that ignore gender bias, a reliance on institutions that have traditionally excluded women, and a neglect of gender as a fundamental ideological category underpinning many of the societal judgments of past thinkers. The article argues that Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell, in particular, amongst early modern women writers saw such limitations most clearly, and more so than many contemporary feminist theorists. Early modern writers can, therefore, offer useful insights as to how intellectual historians can more effectively open up their specialty to women's knowledge and gender analysis.