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Locke's seemingly paradoxical patriarchal stance has led certain commentators to label him as a “patriarchal anti-patriarchalist,” or even one of the “equality radicals” of the late seventeenth century. Rather than falling into this binary between a “patriarchalist reading of Locke” and an “egalitarian reading of Locke,” this essay aims to reveal the complexities of Locke’s political thought. While the two interpretations come to opposite conclusions, both focus on two aspects of Locke's work: the residual patriarchalism evident in his accounts of marriage, and the separation of family from civil society. Despite Locke’s accounts of male dominance within the family based on Scripture, this essay argues that, considering the practices of his day, Locke provides relatively progressive accounts of women's rights and the marriage contract, specifically women’s entitlement to divorce and property ownership. This essay first revisits Locke’s alleged “residual patriarchalism” by exploring his interpretation of Genesis to reassess Eve’s role in relation to Adam. I argue that Locke's biblical analysis reveals an often-overlooked egalitarian undertone. The second section investigates Locke’s accounts of women’s rights and conjugal society, contending that women are not confined to a private sphere, but are granted significant rights that challenge traditional patriarchal norms. In conclusion, while not supporting either the “patriarchalist reading” or the “egalitarian reading,” this essay suggests that Locke’s contributions can be interpreted as challenging patriarchal structures.

Keywords: John Locke, feminism, The Sexual Contract, Patriarchalism, Liberalism

Keywords: artiste, illustration, témoignage, itinérance, campement

Being provided with the source of a scholarly product (book, data, document, etc.) used in a published work is an important aspect of communication in the scholarly world because it allows the author’s peers to verify the results presented therein. Until recently, inconsistency, idiosyncratic practices, and a lack of explicit standards have been the dominant characteristics of the history of supplying bibliographic information for a publication mentioned. This essay uses Robert K. Merton’s (1910–2003) well-known paper “Science and the Social Order” (1938) as a case study to illustrate how “deficient” bibliographic referencing hampers the research process. The long-standing absence of norms regulating source referencing information was gradually reversed during the twentieth century, when sets of formalized and standardized rules were put into place and codified as the new millennium approached–especially with the advent of digital technology. This article examines the variegated ways in which bibliographic material was provided (or not) and suggests how a convergence of factors put an end to this “disorderly” bibliographic sourcing environment.

Keywords: bibliographic documentation, source referencing norms, scholarly communication, bibliographic practices, bibliographic standardization

The Quebec Government's response to the Chaoulli Supreme court decision about unreasonable waiting times and private health insurance has been to introduce guaranteed limits on wait time for certain health care services. In this paper we examine two documents : the White paper, or Guaranteeing Access : Meeting the challenges of equity, effciency and quality, and Bill 33, tabled in June 2006. An analysis of these documents shows that the Government is suggesting not one but two separate guarantee mechanisms quite different from one another : the public guarantee on the one hand and the public-private guarantee on the other. The first one, the public guarantee, is for all practical purposes already in place, even if not called as such, for tertiary cardiology and radiation oncology services. Results of the use of this mechanism in the past few years have shown drastic improvement to access to care. We welcome the expansion of the public guarantee for healthcare services in Quebec. However, the Quebec proposal also introduces a second type of guarantee, the public-private one, for which we express strong reservations. This guarantee is linked to staunch conservative ideology, as found in Canada and elsewhere, and it is part and parcel of the introduction of private health insurance for medical and hospital services, as well as the delegation of public services to profit-seeking private enterprises. Its main impact over the mid to long term would be the support of the legalization and expansion of private surgical facilities and, more broadly, the implementation of a parallel system of private medical and hospital care in Quebec. The public interest of Quebeckers would be poorly served by such an initiative.

Mireille Calle-Gruber is a writer and professor emeritus of French literature and aesthetics at the université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, where in 2007 she created the Center for Research in Female and Gender Studies and Francophone Literature. In this dialogue with Anaïs Frantz she explores the immodesty of literary writing.