Marie de Gournay and Rita Levi-Montalcini: the Women's Complaint in a time of change

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to underline the search for female identity through two thinkers separated in time, but in agreement in their struggle against patriarchal ideology, and mainly, on the method to express their thinking and their concept of feminine ancestor. Marie de Gournay and Rita Levi-Montalcini start from the female genealogy to understand the past and to project the future. Both of them believed in the necessity to transform the superstructures of society to enhance the intellectual capacity of women. And they did it because they were consistent with their ideas, moved away from dogmatism and called upon to reason and to interpretative freedom.