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Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication Of The Age Of Enlightenment

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Who thought of the ideas that shaped our country today? In the late 17th to18th century, the enlightenment period consisted of philosophers trying to find a way to understand and help the society. The enlightenment period was also called the Age of Reason or Age of Enlightenment. Thinkers of new ideas in this time period were called philosophers. Philosophers displayed their ideas through essays, newspapers, books, laws for social sciences, and salons. Salons were great rooms that held artists and philosophers from the middle and upper class to share their ideas with other intellectuals. The salon, or thinking room, held conversations that consisted of political, religious, economic, or social problems. Philosophers believed that if they used the reasoning …show more content…

In the 18th century, people believed women should be dependent on a man, emotional, and workers at home. Women were discouraged to study any knowledgeable subjects, which teach women how to reason and how to make arguments. Wollstonecraft says “... that the only method of leading women to fulfill their peculiar duties is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate in the inherent rights of mankind” (Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the rights of Woman). Wollstonecraft is trying to say that the natural rights of women are restricted to their fullest and it needs to be stopped. The stereotype of women back the is the idea that they are not as intelligent or stronger than men. Wollstonecraft is trying to prove women are just as great as men by saying let them free and fulfill their knowledge and they will prove they are just as dominant as men. Social contract is contradictory in this instance because women don't even have a connection with government because they can't participate. Today, women can do everything Wollstonecraft had hoped

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Wollstonecraft strongly believed,“...both sexes must act from the same principle…” (Doc D) Wollstonecraft strongly wanted both sexes to follow the same criteria and be given the same educational rights, so that women could be wiser and more virtuous. Wollstonecraft and Locke both believed that all should be equal and this supports that women are one of the groups besides religion that were not given as many rights as others. She also thought,“... women must be allowed to found their virtue on knowledge...to full fill their peculiar duties...to free them from all restraint…”

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Philosophers believed that men act like tyrants and act immature so they need to change their ways. In Document F-1 Mary Wollstonecraft says “But if women are to be excluded, without having a voice, from participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward of the charge… there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same.” Wollstonecraft is fighting for equality, believes the only reason women are not equal is based off of old tradition, and it is time for change.

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The main argument was woman can everything man can do. The purpose it was written was the failure of the French Constitution to give woman rights. Wollstonecraft saying that woman need to educate their children and be the best wife to their husband as can be. Wollstonecraft wrote, “But few parents are willing to receive the respectful affection of their offspring on such terms. They demand blind obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service: and to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding, a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle;”(CH 11) (Pg 2) Wollstonecraft is advocating that if woman do not have an education they will feel like they don’t have anything quality to teach her children, so then her children will not respect her.

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The Age of Reason In Europe, during the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, many philosophers gathered together to discuss their different but similar ideas to help shape the world we live in today. In the late 17th and 18th century, four enlightenment philosophers named John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft focused on the same main idea. They believed in individual rights and presented their arguments through religion, government, economics, and equality for women.

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With the power of education Men and Women could become equal with education as that is a natural right. Wollstonecraft states that education allows people to become independent, letting they think for themselfs. She also says that men must pursue equal rights for both sexs as it can not be done by half the population. Everyone must try to obtain the rights they and their neighbors need. Wollstonecraft main focus was on natural rights, even if it was only focusing on making the sexs equal.

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In an excerpt from her 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, novelist, philosopher, and women’s rights champion Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women must be educated if they want to make important decisions in society and within the home. She begins by discussing the corrupt and confining divisions in society. While there are a few ways for men to creep out of their predetermined ranks and futures, for women this is a nearly insurmountable task, she claims. She says that just legislation is aimed at promoting public good, but that women do not neatly fit into this equation. Many male philosophers believe that women should stay in the home and live lives of propriety, she relates.

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In the book of vindication of the right of a woman, Wollstonecraft brings out clearly the roles of a woman in her society and how it has led to oppression of women (Wollstonecraft 22). Wollstonecraft believes that men and women are equal given the same environment and empowerment, women can do anything a man can do. In her society, education for women is only aimed at making her look pleasing to men. Women are treated as inferior being and used by men as sex objects. Wollstonecraft believed that the quality of mind of women is the same with that of men, and therefore women should not be denied a chance for formal education that will empower them to be equal with men.

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In "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" Mary Wollstonecraft, argues how women of her time are constrained in their rights of what they are and are not allowed to do. She believes that women should be treated the same as men, except for taking care of the children and motherhood. Furthermore, she wants women to be able to participate in politics and financially be able to take care of themselves and this would create a more loving and understanding mother, wife, and overall person (626-628). This claim during her time is extremely radical, but today it would be a normal claim. She proposes that women have put themselves in this situation themselves and to prevent this from happening women need to sustain themselves and not allow men to make all the decisions and do all the work.

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At the time, women were mere dehumanized ornaments, thought to be incapable of any intellect or reason. Through her demand for the humanization of women, Wollstonecraft

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Throughout this text, Wollstonecraft discusses how close-minded society was about women and equality. She describes society as being under the impression that women and men were two different animals. Society also believed that men were free and logical thinkers that could rule and change society while women were seen as pretty objects that could bear children. Wollstonecraft’s feminist view discusses that the problem was not only men inhibiting women, but women themselves were also not pushing against the ideology that men were superior. She continues to explain her new feminist ideology that discusses changes in society that would create equality.

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Wollstonecraft’s powerful literary work presents rational principles so women can liberate themselves from oppression. Specifically, a social construct in which women were second tier to men in every aspect of their lives. Wollstonecraft argues that both men and women were born with the right to reason, and that women should have access to the same education, power, and influence in society as men do. During this time period, education played a strong role in women appearing unintelligent due to their lack of proper education. Wollstonecraft believes that if women have the same opportunities as men and proper training in math, philosophy, and science, then they could become productive and influential members of society.

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To keep the social victories, women need to find a balance between being decisive and allowing themselves a destructive full freedom of actions. Yes, Wollstonecraft argues for a stronger suppression of women’s desires in order for women to gain equal rights with men. The path to equality lies through education, and desires pose a danger to perceiving the education

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This reasoning has given rise to one of the biggest challenge women’s education faces: the belief that they should only be taught skills to please men and kept innocent like children. Wollstonecraft does not think otherwise that children should be kept innocent, but this can not be said for women, as “when the epithet is plied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness”. In another words, Wollstonecraft is appealing to civic rights men own and demanding for women to share the same and the opportunity to educate themselves, because by owing this right they will at least have the chance to prove if they are worthy to “be considered as moral beings, or so weak that they must entirely subjected to the superiority faculties of men”. If Rousseau is so sure that women are inferior, why doesn’t he give them an opportunity, even if it is just to leave the discussion behind. However, if women had the same opportunities as men, according to Wollstonecraft they would be much stronger and active, and would prove men wrong on their assumptions of inferiority and that they should not be treated as

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Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in response to a report to the French National Assembly, which stated that women should only receive a domestic education (Johnson Lewis). She believed that women needed to be educated in order to find their way to equality with men. Wollstonecraft writes in the introduction: “The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve

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What he is implying is that men will always have more power than women because they are naturally physically stronger than women. It can be interpreted that no matter how intelligent a woman is, she will never be able to overcome a man because she is limited by her lack of strength. Wollstonecraft agrees that men are stronger than women but counteracts this statement by writing that, “the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practicing various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent, of her husband” (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, page 19). She strongly disagrees with Rousseau and believes that as long as a woman has the proper education and upbringing, than she can be considered an equal rather than a subordinate. Wollstonecraft believes that until women are equal to men and free from their control, they will will never be moral.

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