Gabrielle Suchon was born in Semur-en-Auxois, France, in 1632 and died in 1703 in Dijon, France. Her father was a judge, and her mother came from a well-off, land-owning family. Not much else is known about Suchon’s early life. She was sent to a convent after her father’s death where she spent several years until she was allowed to leave. Women who were sent to the convent were often forced to go because of refusing to marry or because their family could not support them. After leaving, she went back to her childhood home and made a living through teaching. Suchon was self-educated, as women had limited educational opportunities at the time. She used the libraries in the convent to begin her education.
In her works, Suchon argued against both marriage and the convent. She viewed them as corrupt, patriarchal institutions where women were viewed as subservient to men. Societal views at the time remarked that women were not as smart as men and needed guidance and control from their husbands. In marriage, a women’s wealth went to her husband’s family and their husband could treat them as he pleased. Suchon believed that both marriage and the convent implemented a dependency on others and deny fulfillment of independence and wrote about this in several of her works.
Suchon clearly stated her personal disproval of marriage and the convent, she never argued that one should not join the convent or a marriage, but that women should be able to enter at their own free choice. In one of her most famous works, “On the Celibate Life Freely Chosen” (1700), Suchon claims that it is best to live a life that you chose for yourself. She coins the term “neutralist” as someone who lives a life by free choice. She praised celibacy for being a life without commitments and full of potential. She argued that choices made from our free will do not interfere or constrain our nature. Suchon spoke out against a common viewpoint that women who did not marry were “useless” by arguing that neutralists express their nature through free choice which makes them vital to society. Suchon’s other published works include the “Treatise of Morality and Politics”, published in 1693. In this, Suchon tells women to believe that they have the same capabilities as men and encourages them to seek education and resist male supremacy.
Suchon modeled her concept of neutralism in her own life. She fled the convent, did not marry, and spent her life teaching and learning. She lived a solitary life as there is no evidence of her corresponding with other philosophers. Suchon’s works supported an early feminist perspective that supported gender equality and free choice for women, although her work was relatively undiscovered until the late 20th century as her views did not align with the viewpoints of the male-dominated society. Suchon is considered one of the first female feminist writers. Feminist historians value Suchon’s work as a way to understand the difficulties of being a woman during Suchon’s lifetime and her work inspired later female philosophers to question inequality.