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Summary Of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

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Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written during the period of French Revolution in late 1970s. Here she argues about the importance of women in the society by analyzing the inauthentic aspect of the women, which makes them mysterious, graceful, weak, and childlike. For Wollstonecraft, reason is essential for development of virtuous nature, and comes from the education. As a result being deprived of education and constantly being shaped by the culture, women lack rationality. Society always looks at women with a special eye, which is not the case for men. Wollstonecraft’s’ message to all the women is to come out of their culturally constructed state, avoid being elegant, examine their inherent nature, and be rationale.
Wollstonecraft is heavily inspired by Rousseau, and embraces his commitments to be independent and free. Even though she speaks of women as separate from herself, but she does not compliment them, instead reprimand them for failing limiting their goals till marriage. She condemns women for wasting all their energy in beauty, marriage and children. Even today, if a woman is not married, in the eyes of the society that woman is not a …show more content…

She goes further to define society’s definition of being masculine and feminine; masculine means intelligent and strong while feminine was equated with delicacy. Women are beautiful, thus they are physically weak compared to men; for Wollstonecraft the only thing needed is moral goodness and not physical strength. Gendered behavior is affected by what education and experience one gets, and not with what is inherent to them. Yes, women are sensitive, they cry easily on anything that hurts them, but even men cry seldomly. Maybe it is culture that compels or teaches men to not be like women, preventing them from being

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Wollstonecraft’s on the other hand centers around how personal happiness is better over social obligation because the social obligation of woman is what will cause their downfall into being nothing more than lessee beings than their male counterparts. These opposing forces leave major conflicts, conundrums and despair in their place when left with a choice between the two. What is personal happiness? Personal happiness is when you can lay down on the grass in white jeans, feeling the sun while not worrying about stains. Personal happiness is when you find the most alluring and profound beauty in all the negative spaces of your life and mentality; it’s beating your own record in a game, getting the person of your dreams, the bonus and promotion from your job.

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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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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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This is the major object Wollstonecraft recognizes concerning why women are secondary to men: every side of their background from the instant they arrive the world is positioned toward making them feeble, passive, and reliant on upon men. Women are entertained to only want to be attractive so they can appeal men. They take pleasure in their own humbleness and weakened physical strength. They partake in covetousness with other ladies. Since they are so restricted and restrained to the secluded domain, they become absorbed on no other responsibilities.

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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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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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Rousseau states that women should be "passive and weak", "put up little resistance" and are "made specially to please man". Wollstonecraft wonders how someone as Rousseau “lowers his sentiments when describing women and interprets his words as the rationalization that women are in fact, considered either moral beings, or extremely weak that they must be entirely subject to “the supreme faculties of men. Therefore, there is a contradiction in Rousseau’s words, why women should not receive education, if they are equal to

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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 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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The discussion of gender and sexual representation in literature has ancestral references that go back to the classical period of Greece. There we can find works like The Bacchae tragedy of Euripides and Lysistrata comedy of Aristophanes. However, it was not until the XVIII century that a systematic insurgency of women's rights began, headed by Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1792, this British author publishes A vindication of the rights of woman, which discusses that women must have an education commensurate with their position in society.

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Chapter iii Mary Wollstonecraft concept of education for women In this chapter we will be discussing Wollstonecraft concept of education for women. For Wollstonecraft education is very important for women as it will help them strengthen their mind and help them become a better mothers and wife`s. Wollstonecraft was a passionate advocate for education reforms. I would like to present the criticisms on Rousseau's ideas on education put forth by Mary Wollstonecraft in her political treatise "A Vindication of The Rights of Woman" (1792).

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