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Vindication Of Woman

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An Influential Advocate of Women's Education In the powerfully progressive essay, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," by highly influential author and founder of feminism Mary Wollstonecraft, the state of women's rights and lack thereof is effectively argued. The essay pinpoints many of the traditional justifications for denying women their inalienable rights, and shoots them down, describing their flaws and lack of reasoning. The result is the first feminist philosophical work ever published, and what many believe is the masterpiece that paved the way for the future of women's rights. Wollstonecraft believed that in order for society to function optimally, everyone, including women should exercise their ability to reason, the only …show more content…

Every problem presented in her opinion is paired with a viable solution that is based in logic, backed up by evidence, is easily attainable, and is not overly simplified. While there are a lot of references to Wollstonecraft's moral beliefs and vindications, she does not allow her own emotions to affect the delivery of her opinions. When she explains the current state of women's education, she uses the example of military soldiers, who just like women, are "sent into the world before their minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified by principles" (Wollstonecraft) the negative impact being that they are only living up to the potential society tells them they have- to please men. Without this obstructive mentality, Wollstonecraft believed that women can become better mothers and wives. This idea is also illustrated by Wollstonecraft's opinion of another author, Dr. John Gregory, who believed that women would fulfill their life's purpose upon marrying and having children. Whole hearted disagreeing , she argues that since women have never been given the opportunity to pursue an education, their true potential cannot be gaged, because "the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment," (Wollstonecraft) so the argument that men are superior in their accomplishments has no bearing. Wollstonecraft's solution is simply leveling the playing field, by offering women the chance to prove their true value and worth. In doing this, women may not overshadow the accomplishments of men, but no harm would come out of granting them this

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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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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 said, “The only method of leading women to fulfil their peculiar duties is to free

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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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The True Reason for World War One The reason behind the commencement of the first World War has long been pondered through time. An argument is that the war started because of a fight for land. Another argument is that the dream of imperialism drove many countries to war. It is Believed that a growing sense of nationalism within the Balkan region drove many nations to war.

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In the book, A Vindication to the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft is able to express the beauty of a women, and express the humanly rights that we should preserve in order to keep an image of beauty. She expresses how women have the right to be praised for what she can do instead of what she looks like. She does not express rights in a political way, to bring to light how women are viewed as a weakness because women do not have the same strength that men have. Without diminishing a woman's beauty, she also demonstrates that women are naturally weaker, because that is how the woman was designed. A woman may be weaker in physical strength than a man, but through the intelligence and character each woman possesses, she be just as strong

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Mary Wollstonecraft does not agree with the statement that women don not have enough mentally strength to become morally good by themselves. She says that: “To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness.” Mary Wollstonecraft believes that if women have souls they supposed to have rational power as men.

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Wollstonecraft in her book titled “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” was acting as an advocate for women trying to establish equality between men and women especially in the area of education. She maintained that men and women were born with equal reasoning ability and as a result of this women have the right to enjoy equal education and influence in the society as men. One thing I noticed from her work is that she tends to focus on women in the middle class of the economy. I believe she wrote the work to oppose those writers who claimed that education for women is meant to make them more pleasing to the men, those who have declared that women have no soul and also make them to be artificial weak character.

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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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Mary wollstonecraft believes that when it comes to equality, many of the Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers, stay one step behind. One of the ideals of Enlightenment is placed upon reason and how it should aim at developing

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Mary Wollstonecraft’s, Maria or The Wrongs of Woman, is an analyzation and critique about a woman’s place in society. Specifically, that socially, politically, and economically woman are at a disadvantage. Furthermore, society perpetuates this imbalance through certain expectations about motherhood, marriage, and double standards. This power imbalance has always been present in society and through the analyzation of Maria and themes such as: motherhood, domination, and traditionalist thought it is possible to contextualize the era that Mary Wollstonecraft lived in to gain a better understanding of what women went through in her time so that we have a reference to compare to how women are treated today.

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In Wollstonecraft, Mary’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792, she claims that women should be educated and men could not disentitle women’s rights just because

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It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners", Wollstonecraft had written in A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. Even though it is over two centuries late, now is as good as a time as any, to break through these stereotypes and promote women in a healthy manner to have a sizeable representation in the engineering workforce. Another quote from her book: A Vindication of the Rights of Men goes like: "Virtue can only flourish amongst equals". Thus, if we require a significant proportion of women in the engineering workforce, it is critical that we provide them with equal opportunity in every step of the funnel instead of simply adding an artificial reservation in firms to force them to hire women for the sake of diversity. An ideal society would have an equal number of women enrolled for primary and secondary education,

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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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Feminist literary criticism’s primary argument is that female characters have always been presented from a male’s viewpoint. According to Connell, in most literary works, female characters often play minor roles which emphasize their domestic roles, subservience and physical beauty while males are always the protagonists who are strong, heroic and dominant (qtd. in Woloshyn et al.150). This means that the women are perceived as weak and are supposed to be under the control of men. Gill and Sellers say that feminist literary criticism’s approach involves identifying with female characters in order to challenge any male centred outlook.

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