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Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

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Proverbs from Hell is an intense poem about the Philosophy of the Devil. Many of the philosophies we hold today and even back then are very backwards. Some of Blake’s Proverbs from Hell are supported in Songs of Innocence and Experience. The proverb I chose is “The best wine is the oldest. [T]he best water the newest” (Blake ). This proverb has obvious meanings to us; however, we are to look at it from a distorted perspective. When I first read this I thought about how wine is made. It is a process in which man figured out, a way to drink liquids that did not have bacteria secretly growing in them. Also, the best water being the newest makes sense, because of the bacteria that can grow and develop in stagnant water or even defecation in running …show more content…

“…women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners o women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state;” ( Wollstonecraft )This can be related to the proverb “The best wine is the oldest. [T]he best water the newest” (Blake ) discussed above with the same mentality. In that time, men and women were treated differently, even from childhood. The games they could play based on genders was different, and their schooling was different. Women were treated from the day they got their gender as the inferior sex and men as superior. Childlike innocence can be drastically changed by such mentalities. Wollstonecraft advocates that women are vital in the child’s development and need proper education to make an impact on their children’s lives. She’s very clever in advocating for women’s rights in the sense that a man could understand how it would be beneficial to his life and his children. She knows how to work her words to make the most impact. She fights against the bacteria to be further spread into the new water that is coming into the world. Wollstonecraft is our wine and people who believe that virginity is a woman’s only virtue is our tainted water. She writes “a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore;”. (Wollstonecraft ) Wollstonecraft has found the type of bacteria in the water that her alcohol is not susceptible to. Her ideas are strong, but not so much like a shot of vodka, but underlying in the flavor. She understands presentation is important to create change. The flavor is what people fawn

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However, Elizabeth Smith points out that Wollstonecraft avoids associating herself with weak women, but she shares the feeling of oppression by men. She strengthens her ethos by being a strong woman who stands up against oppressive men, and she appeals to the emotions of the female audience by the use of first person pronouns. Wollstonecraft wants women to find strength to fight for equality, so she draws the anger from women who feel that men treat them as objects. She then calls for women to stand up for themselves against oppressors because she knows the female audience’s anger encourages women to gain confidence. Thus, Wollstonecraft appeals to the female audience’s emotions with first person pronouns that show how Wollstonecraft experiences the same adversity as all women, but she also strengthens her ethos by distancing herself from weak, submissive women in order to encourage women to join her in the fight to end man’s oppression of

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As a woman striving for intellectual and philosophical pursuits, she challenges the stereotype of women as intellectually “inferior” to men. Moreover, Wollstonecraft strategically employs references to other influential thinkers and philosophers of her time, such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. By aligning herself with prominent intellectuals, she positions her ideas within a broader philosophical context, making her arguments appear well-grounded and respected by her peers. This tactic further enhances her ethos and enhances the credibility of her

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In her document she claims that, “Women must be allowed to found their virtue on knowledge, which is scarcely possible unless they be educated by the same pursuits as men”(Wollstonecraft, On National Education). Wollstonecraft dynamically argued that if women had the right to study, they’d be able to prove they aren’t inferior by ignorance and low desires. Despite the fact that these four philosophers had contrasting ideas on how to enhance daily life, they all concentrated the same central idea. They each contributed something unique to their society, which has influenced our daily

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1792 is the year of Mary Wollstonecraft’s greatest work which produced lasting ideas and influences that continue to be relevant today. A Vindication of the Rights of Women is a continuation of Wollstonecraft’s ideas about education. She says in order to create equality for men and women, it has to be started in education. She produces the idea of a new education system where boys and girls studied together and learned the same

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People were also in the mindset for a lot of change and are more willing to hear out reasoning due to the timing being during the Enlightenment period. However, they are still very used to and comfortable with traditional roles and expect this type of lifestyle to play the major role in Wollstonecraft’s argument. Her argument is more about being able to introduce the audience to the idea of women getting education as she knows her audience isn’t necessarily going to change how education is for women, but wants to introduce the idea in order for the audience to start thinking about women being more capable of basic things and thinking. Ultimately, Wollstonecraft’s argument of obtaining the audience's attention is effective because of her tendency to couch radical views in conservative language and premises due to her extensive understanding of her audience. We can see this idea being fed to the audience constantly in her writing, one can see this specifically when looking at her choice of words.

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Enit Stiner acknowledges, “In a Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft threw down the gauntlet, not only to her male readers, but equally important to the other women writers of her day, as she called for a ‘revolution in female manners’ And these women took up Wollstonecraft’s challenge.” Wollstonecraft inspired her readers to take part in this change. Stiner writes on the influence Wollstonecraft had on female readers during her time. Not long after, female readers were putting their views on paper.

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Wollstonecraft argues in her writing that “men […] build their enjoyment on the misery of their fellow creatures; [that] men were more under the dominion of reason than opinion” (213). She discusses the issue of the elite taking advantage of the lower class or the poor. Wollstonecraft urges her audience that this issue of the elite abusing their power of education and wealth and using it for selfish reasons is causing corruption in our society, but yet, it blindly continues on to this very day and nothing is done to stop it. Wollstonecraft also explains the ignorance that mankind is consumed in, by using the death of Christ. “

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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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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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Mary Wollstonecraft states her opinion on the argument that education is the basis for gaining equality within a society. Educating women begin the process of educating the next generation. Mary Wollstonecraft mentions in her essay that an education for women is essential, for it is their gender’s responsibility to educate and nurture the next generation of children. Quoted in the phrase “such an attention to a child as will slowly sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they being to ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body arrives at maturity” (Wollstonecraft 220)”.

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Wollstonecraft argues for the rights of women in her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. She opposes that only men can receive education. Women are taught by their mother the knowledge of human weakness, “cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety” (2.2). They should be beautiful, then men will protect them. Wollstonecraft argues that women focus on being beautiful and stay indoors, they can’t really run reason because they depend on men.

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Women 's rights have always been something to fight towards, and Mary Wollstonecraft helps us do that with her publication A Vindication of Rights of Woman. She heavily endorsed the education of women AND men. She wanted to change the traditional perspective on women as being a victim or needing help. Furthermore, she thought, without equality, it that much easier for men to control women. Education leads to civil and political rights, which further equal the rights men have in comparison to women.

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Ford goes on to discuss the scrutiny that Wollstonecraft faced during the 1970’s. After the 1970’s, Wollstonecraft was reappraised with the second wave in 1994. Susan Gubar and others accepted Wollstonecraft as a vital source as the founder of feminism. With Wollstonecraft’s work “Vindications of the Rights of Woman,” explained as “the founding feminist text in English.” In his 16 page excerpt of Wollstonecraft, he goes over the scrutinies, the appraisals and the great work that was written over the years.

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Throughout her life, Wollstonecraft lived in a way that was unlike most women of her time. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft wrote “I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.” She refused to conform to society’s expectations of a

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Wollstonecraft found women to be lazy and thought that laziness would continue to be a female characteristic unless both mental and bodily moral stamina were required of them. She believed that a sound moral education could enlarge the mind. As a result, feminine blind obedience would cease, and women would no longer be veiled in ignorance under the guise of innocence. Wollstonecraft’s idea of virtue was a composite of goodness, justice, respect, honesty and chastity. Furthermore, she advised the female sex to cultivate modesty and reserve, for women could not remain complacent to be mere objects of pleasure with many vices and follies.

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