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Summary Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

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ome people might believe that A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is relevant to this day, especially in regards to education. Wollstonecraft proclaimed that education should be free and equal for both men and women. Her beliefs are very similar to what public education is like today. She felt that men and women should be considered equal among many aspects, like education. To her, females were just as capable to go to school and get an education as men were, and that the idea of a baby being strapped to her waist should not deter her from her dreams. This kind of view really paved the way for equal education, and it was written long before the United States was even established as an independent nation.
Wollstonecraft was going against people …show more content…

She believes that women are just as able to work as men are, and take care of their family at the same time. She opens her book by explaining the unfairness and oppression brought on by the education system, and how females are not properly assimilated to it. She believes strongly that women are oppressed and therefore rejected for a chance at participating in society, which negatively contributes to society as a whole. She states in her book that young female education is very much at fault for how adult women are in society, at the time of her writing. Women, in her time, were viewed below men, as though they were not as important or smart enough. They only care about how they look, how poise they are, and that they are weak and feeble minded. She states that females are explained when they are children and throughout their life by their mothers, “that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.” She then goes onto explaining how women are told to be beautiful and that everything else is unnecessary, until they start a family. Because they lack the proper education, they cannot find their oppression and are largely unaware of their oppressing conditions men have placed them in. This is an interesting idea approached by Wollstonecraft, as she explores the reasoning behind female

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Throughout "The Rights of Women," Mary Wollstonecraft carefully constructs her ethos to convince her readers of her authority on the subject matter. She begins by acknowledging her limitations, stating that she is not seeking to establish herself as an extraordinary writer but as a rational thinker with a genuine concern for the welfare of her fellow women. This humility allows her to connect with the reader and establish a shared humanity. Wollstonecraft also draws on her life experiences and intellectual capabilities to emphasize her understanding of the challenges faced by women. Her struggles with limited educational opportunities and societal expectations of women inform her arguments, making her advocacy personal and relatable.

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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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Wollstonecraft explains that women “they must be permitted to turn to the fountain of light, and not forced to shape their course by the twinkling of a mere satellite” (3). In the 1790’s women weren’t allowed to amount to the same standards as men. Wollstonecraft describes that the steps towards liberation were for all females to endeavour out into the world and find their own path in life. They must be able to have access to an education and make their futures whatever they wanted them to be, then they would use their knowledge towards improving society. Feminism is still a major issue today and society views it as a great thing, for the sexes to be

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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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A virtue, which is the rights of men and women. In order for women to obtain their natural rights to equality in society, a woman would have to gain an education. Early in her life, Wollstonecraft felt that an education was a cure to many of the disadvantages that faced the women of a time period where they were considered less articulated than men. A feminist leader of her time by opening a girl’s school at Newington Green to writing a book, “The Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.

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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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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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She reasoned that because men and women were both undeniably human beings, one should not be treated in a better way than the other. She wanted women to be allowed the rights of all men- life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. In her influential work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she writes about how society views women as weak and treats them as inferior to men. She notices that any woman who tries to step out of society’s expectations will be looked down upon- “[Women] were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine.”

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