The Enlightenment was a complex and often contradictory moment for women in Europe and its colonies. The period between 1680 and 1800 saw civil liberties established through political and intellectual revolution. At the same time, contemporary thinkers produced justifications for ongoing gender, class, and racial inequalities which had profound effects on women. An age of burgeoning commercial and imperial expansion, the period witnessed the birth of consumer society and the peak of the Atlantic slave trade. Modern liberal feminism grew up in this environment, as did the abolition...