# On the Woman Question in Machiavelli

Michelle T. Clarke. Journal article, 2005.
Review of Politics 67, no. 2 (2005): 229–255.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500033507
Author's site: https://michelletclarke.com/

## Summary

Against the familiar charge of misogyny, notes that Machiavelli’s major works feature dozens of politically effective and sometimes admirable women, such as Caterina Sforza. To understand them, it reconstructs Machiavelli’s concept of animo, the natural spiritedness that becomes virtù when disciplined by a city’s institutions. Because women stand outside those institutions, they show what political outsiders do with unbridled animo, for better or worse, and Machiavelli’s treatment of them denaturalizes gender norms, so that his works can be read as feminist texts even though he was no feminist.

## Topics

- Machiavelli
- Gender
- Women
- Spiritedness (animo)
- Political outsiders
- Caterina Sforza

## How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “On the Woman Question in Machiavelli.” *Review of Politics* 67, no. 2 (2005): 229–255. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500033507.

```bibtex
@article{clarke2005woman,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{On the Woman Question in Machiavelli}},
  year      = {2005},
  journal   = {Review of Politics},
  volume    = {67},
  number    = {2},
  pages     = {229--255},
  doi       = {10.1017/S0034670500033507},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500033507}
}
```

## Related work by the author

- Curing Virtue: Epicureanism and Erotic Fantasy in Machiavelli’s Mandragola (Political Theory, 2022): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/machiavelli-mandragola-curing-virtue.md
- Machiavelli’s Virtuous Princes: Rhetoric, Power, and the Politics of Ironic Historiography (Journal of Politics, 2022): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/machiavelli-virtuous-princes.md
- Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism (The Good Society, 2022): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/style-is-the-man-himself-humanism.md