The feminist movement emerged for the first time in Europe during the Enlightenment. Female writers like Mary Wollstonecraft did a great deal to advance the cause of female independence, and women made slow progress during the Enlightenment period. It was the first time that Europeans began to collectively consider the role and subjugation of women in European society.

Thomas Hobbes was an Enlightenment philosopher who is usually contrasted against John Locke. Both men wrote extensively on the state of nature, the social contract, and the role of the state, but came to very different conclusions. While Locke believed the role of the state was to preserve each individual’s right to life, liberty, and property ownership, Hobbes believed that the role of the state was to protect each individual from the aggression of other individuals. Hobbes had little faith in mankind in its natural state and believed the state existed to prevent people from killing one another and stealing from one another.

During the Renaissance, the status of upper- and middle-class women suffered dramatically. Women’s minds were considered inadequate for higher learning, and women’s bodies were considered to be owned by their father or husband. Noticeably, the standard punishment for rape across Europe changed dramatically from the Medieval period (castration or death) to the Renaissance period (a fine payable to the father or husband). The status of peasant women remained relatively stable during the transition from the Medieval period to the Renaissance period.

During the Renaissance period, the Spanish government enforced a strict religious orthodoxy that prevented the spread of Renaissance ideals like individualism and faith in the ability of humans. Furthermore, the Jews and the Muslims, who made up much of Spain's middle classes, were forced to leave the country, taking with them the resources and inclination that might have spread Renaissance values in Spain.

Cromwell defeated the Scottish forces during the English Civil War, which allowed him to take full control over Parliament. You might not have known the correct answer, but you should know that Scottish Calvinists were called Presbyterians, and that if Cromwell defeated the Scottish, he would be able to force the Scottish religious group out of Parliament. After he took control of Parliament, it voted to execute King Charles for treason.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was adopted by the National Assembly in 1790, during the first state of the French Revolution. It established that all clergymen were to be elected by the population and were prohibited from owing allegiance to the authority of the Vatican.

Marquis de Condorcet was a French Enlightenment thinker and writer who is popularly remembered for his writings advocating for equal rights for women and minorities. He remains an influential early feminist writer as well as influential in other areas of philosophy and political theory.

The above quotation is the most famous quotation attributed to the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract. It reflects his belief that man is born free in a state of nature, but is corrupted and imprisoned by the constructs and constraints of society.

Quotation adapted from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1762; 1920 J. M. Dent & Sons ed.)

Thomas Hobbes was a famous Enlightenment-era thinker whose opinion that the life of people in an ungoverned state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is usually contrasted against John Locke’s belief in natural human rights. Hobbes would contend that people only have the right to that which they can protect for themselves.

Quotation adapted from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651; ed. A. R. Waller, 1904 ed.)

Mary Wollstonecraft is most famous for her Enlightenment feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; however, she was also a notable advocate for republicanism and a supporter of the French Revolution. In A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft attacks the conservative arguments that Edmund Burke had made in Reflections of the Revolution in France.