Works written by Suchon:
Suchon, Gabrielle. Treatise on Ethics and Politics (1693)
Suchon, Gabrielle. On the Celibate Life Freely Chosen; or, Life without Commitments (1700)
Works written about Suchon:
- Shapiro, Lisa, ‘Gabrielle Suchon’s ‘Neutralist’: The Status of Women and the Invention of Autonomy’, in Jacqueline Broad, and Karen Detlefsen (eds), Women and Liberty, 1600-1800: Philosophical Essays (Oxford, 2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Dec. 2017)
A “neutralist” is someone who commits themselves to celibacy and rejects the commitments of marriage and the convent. Neutralists are able to follow their “inner rational law of nature”, rather than the will of institutions.
- Paine, R., 2022. Gabrielle Suchon: a snapshot – The Philosophers’ Magazine Archive. [online] The Philosophers’ Magazine Archive. Available at: <https://archive.philosophersmag.com/gabrielle-suchon-a-snapshot/> [Accessed 13 October 2022].
Suchon grew up in France where she was forced to join a convent after her father died. Suchon left the convent, later writing in The Neutralist that both marriage and the convent were corrupt, patriarchal institutions. She argues that a “neutralist” lives a simple life with friends and intellectual study.
- Derval Conroy (2021) Society and Sociability in Gabrielle Suchon: Towards a Politics of Friendship, Early Modern French Studies, 43:1, 54-69
Suchon’s work includes education, rights of women, equality, and freedom. Suchon argues that the best society is one of peace and friendship between its members. Suchon argues that women have the capabilities for friendship and conversation, which opposed the viewpoints some male philosophers had at the time.