TERM
PAPER ON MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT’S A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
SUJITHA.M
1 M A ECL
LCL051521
The
eighteenth century enlightenment figure Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
is generally considered as the founding text or manifesto of western feminism. Nineteenth century American feminists
considered her as their founding mother of feminism. Mary Wollstonecraft
(1757-1797), acknowledged as one of the feminist writers of modern times and
she belongs to the first wave feminism. She was a radical thinker whose central
notions were formed from the debates and issues that aroused as a result of the
French Revolution in 1789. She writes as
a philosopher, moralist, and an authority of education of women, book reviewer,
a non-sexual voice of reason and religious contemplation, and as a political
projector at the time of French revolution. Her ideas argued for changing the
French constitution and its tyranny. She
propounding arguments in favor of reason and rational thinking; she is against
the hereditary privilege and the entire inequitable apparatus of feudalism, so
that we can rightly been considered her as an enlightenment thinker.
We can consider Wollstonecraft
as a revolutionary figure in a revolutionary time – French Revolution. She always inspired controversy. She not only argued for women’s educational
and moral equality, but acted against the principles of political authority,
tyranny, liberty, class, sex, marriage, child rearing, property, prejudice,
reason, sentimentality, promises, and suicide etc.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s troubled life story
reflects her ideological dispositions. She is the second born and the first
daughter of six children in a family. At the hands of somewhat despotic father
she suffered a lot. Her formal education ended at the age of fifteen. Due to
some economic problems faced in the early life she started to earn living in
the conventional female occupation as governess and lady maid. At that time she
taught herself French, German, Dutch and Italian languages. She opened a school
at Newington Green with her two younger sisters and friend Fanny Blood for the
education of children and women but the school gets failed.
As a woman she was a victim of two
unsuccessful loves, first with the painter Henry Fuseli, and then with an
American business man, Gilbert Imlay whose infidelity led her to two suicide
attempts. At last her friendship with the political
philosopher and critic William Godwin turned in to a successful love and both
of them opposed the principles of marriage.
Later they married for the legitimacy of their child the future Mary
Shelley, the author of the Gothic novel Frankenstein
and the wife of Shelley. In 1797
Wollstonecraft died of an infection contracted during unsuccessful attempts to
remove her broken and expelled placenta, after giving birth to the daughter. Wollstonecraft’s husband Godwin wrote her
biography under the title Memoirs of the
Author of the Rights of Woman in the year 1798. It is a frank account of
her sexual life.
Now
we have to look her literary life. As an enlightenment and feminist figure she
focused on children’s and women’s rights in society. Through her works she
spread her enlightenment principles of reason, duty, freedom and self
determination and patriotism. In the year 1786 she published her first work Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. A keen and vital concern with education,
especially the education of daughters and women run throughout her writing. In
1788 she published her first novel Mary,
a Fiction and then published Maria or
the Wrongs women. In 1790 she had written
A Vindication of the rights of men as
a response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections
on the revolution in France (1790). Edmund Burke was a British writer and
polemicist and he wrote in favors of French revolution and states that citizen
should not rebel against their government in order to revolutionize its
tradition. As a cultural critic Wollstonecraft opposed it and she states that
rights cannot be based on tradition, it is only based on reason and
rationality.
It is already said that A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) is a founding text of
western feminism. As a work on education A
Vindication of the Rights of Women received wild recognition. After England
and France declared war it was increasingly read against the backdrop of its
progressive agendas on behalf of liberty. She had written this treaty as a
response to the French National Assembly’s declaration of the rights in 1789.
This declaration said nothing about the rights of women. The report of the
declaration is prepared by the personality Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-
Perigord. He stated that women should
only receive a domestic education. As an immediate response she wrote the essay
and after that she intended to write a more thoughtful second volume.
Unfortunately before completing this volume she died.
A
Vindication of the Rights of Women proposing the model for equality or
‘liberal’ feminism. Influenced by the enlightenment
thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and John Locke Wollstonecraft commented
that male and female are same in most aspects, possessing the same souls, the
same mental capacities, and the same human rights. But compares to male female’s
rights are limited in our society. As a feminist Wollstonecraft argues for
equality in both sexes. She says that rational education for both children and
women is the only way to ensure equality in society. She mounted her campaign
for the reform of female education, arguing that girls should be educated in
the same subjects and the same method as boys.
The first chapter of the treaty, A Vindication of the Rights of Women concerns
the rights and duties of mankind. Our
experience will prove that by struggling with our passion we attain a degree of
knowledge. By emphasizing on ‘reason’ she states that the perfection of our
nature and capability of happiness are based on reason, virtue and
knowledge. Through her observation she
finds out that human prejudices have clouded reason, this prejudice is the main
cause for inequality in society. She advises us to engage in independent
thinking that will make us practical. In the first chapter she looks entire
history and structure based on prejudice rather than reason. Now we are going to look at our chapter,
which is the second chapter of A Vindication
of the Rights of Women.
FROM A
VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
From chapter 2 - The prevailing opinion of a sexual character
discussed.
Second
chapter of A Vindication of the Rights of
Women is an important one. In this chapter she attempts to make an
understanding of prevailing views of the character of women,
the
political and economic circumstances of eighteenth century women and an
analyzing of male writing about women. In this given extracts Wollstonecraft
mainly analyzing the famous two works in English literature, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s Educational work Emilie.
She criticizes both works for its disapproval of gender equality and rational education for women.
Wollstonecraft begins the extracts by pointing
out two incompatible moments in Milton’s Paradise
Lost: Adam’s plea to God for an equal and Eve’s birth as an unequal. She questioning
Milton’s arguments by asking how is these to be reconciled. She says if God
exists and humans are characterized by immortality, then one God fits all, and
virtue must be the same in kind, if not in degree, for both sexes. In order to
show that male and female are two different thing Milton put it that “he for
god only, she for god in him” (585). This statement proves that male considers
female as their property into which he can extends his power. He puts
her in a secondary position. The obedience and secondarily expected of women
make a mockery of true companionship. In good enlightenment fashion, she comes
close to taking the serpent’s role, arguing Eve out of blind obedience and into
independent thinking.
Through this treaty she opposed the tyranny
of mankind. In the patriarchal society women are not allowed to have sufficient
strength of mind to acquire virtue. The society referred women as the degraded,
oppressed, and politically marginalized one. The stereo type of male society
considers women as slave. Due to
sympathy, in this condition of women Wollstonecraft calls her as the “half of
the human species.” She comments that
women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, then why should they force to live
in ignorance under the name of innocence. Women (Eve) are formed from the ribs of men (men).
It represents her inferiority. Taking Eve as the “first frail mother” (586) of
human Milton tells that women are formed for innocence, attractive and
softness. Milton considers women as
weaker and inferior sex. Here Wollstonecraft mentioning the thought of Islam
that women have soul, they denying souls for women. Patriarchy tries to insult us with domestic
brutes.
Wollstonecraft finds
rational education as a solution for all women’s problem. Then she makes analyze on all writers who
have written on the subject of female education and manners from Rousseau Dr.
Gregory. These writers treat women as
artificial and weaker sex. They call her as useless member of society. Only men
are the respectable and responsible personalities in the world. Sometimes they
forget the role of women in making a respectable family, society and nation.
Taking Rousseau’s Emilie, world’s greatest work on
education, Wollstonecraft conveys the importance rational education and
thinking. She agrees with him what he
wrote about fresh air, exercise, and the natural reason. But she criticizes his
differentiation between the educations of Sophie and Emilie. He limits rational education to boys. Rousseau
giving carefully worked out plan for the growth of male children on the basis
of education from infancy through adolescence. Emilie’s mind develop through
conversation, experiments arranged by the teacher, indeed everything that all
help him to use his eyes and his senses and his imagination. As a woman
Sophie’s condition is worse. She did not get proper education like Emilie.
According to Rousseau women does not rational education like male. Woman should
be educated for the pleasure of men. She is merely puppet in the hands of them.
Women’s responsibility is to care her husband and nurture her children. So that
she needs ‘domestic education’ instead of ‘rational’.
In Rousseau’s opinion if a man did attain
degree of perfection of mind this body arrived at maturity, it might be proper
in order to make man and his wife one that she should be entirely on his
understanding. Not only Rousseau but
also the most of the male writers who have followed in his footsteps argued
that there is only one aim for female education: to make women pleasing to men:
For example John Gregory’s hand book on
proper female behavior, titled A Father’s
Legacy to Daughters (1774) women to cultivate ‘virtues’ for the fondness
for dress. She attacks female writers
such as Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Mme. de Stel, the celebrated French writer
Mme Felicite Genlis as effectively reiterating masculine sentiments.
The lack of education makes
women as secondary thing and domestic employers. It makes her as a dependent one. It is
important to note that if any where women gets education it is a disorderly
kind of education, not the proper one. But the thing is that the little
knowledge that the women attain from various circumstances is strong than the
knowledge of men. Wollstonecraft says
she acquires this knowledge from observations of real life, than from comparing
what has been individually observed with the results of experience generalized
by speculation. She also points out that in the present state of society, a
little learning is required to support the character of a gentleman; and boys
are obliged to submit a few years of discipline. The cultivation of
understanding is subordinate in the case of women, which are the disorderly
kind of education.
Then Wollstonecraft analyses the situation of military officers in order
to show gender inequality. The military man sent into the world before their
minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified by principles. Continuously
with society’s interaction they gains worldly knowledge. Through that knowledge
they acquire manners and customs. Soldiers as well as women, practice the minor
virtues with punctilious politeness. Both of them get the same education, yet
it is rarely found in the army as amongst men are superior to women. Here people fail to appreciate women’s
courage and readiness for working for her nation. Instead they look her through
the eyes of weaker sex and it may be a difficult and impossible task for her. The notion of women are merely zeroes are
already cultivated in the minds of patriarchy.
Woman is considered as a playing tool of the house. They are entirely
the subject of superior faculties of men.
Wollstonecraft examines
Rousseau’s declaration that “a woman should never, for a moment feel
herself independent” (591). She should be governed by fear to exercise the
traditional role of woman, slave for male,
an object of desire and a sweeter companion
to man whenever he chooses to relax himself. She is an emotionless object in
the hands of superior powers. Men have a
great responsibility towards his wife, daughters, and mother. But
they are cruelly neglected, especially the wives. Whether she is loved or neglected, her first
wish should be to make her respectable.
Wollstonecraft put forward a national
education system as the solution for women’s suffrage. She argues for rational education for both
sexes. This argument is based on the promise of freedom enthusiastically
greeted by many English writers in the
early days of French revolution. She
says not only men, but women have the gift of reason, and no authority has the
right to question women’s right. The
rights of women must be respected.
Education is necessary for women.
If she be not prepared by the education to become the companion of man,
her progress of knowledge and virtue will be stop there.
Rational education is necessary in married
life for the mutual understanding of the partners. Youth is the season for love
in both sexes. She says men and women
should be educated in a great degree, she also adds that she does not believe
in the private education. Men appear to her in no philosophical manner when he tries
to secure the conduct of women by keeping them in a state of childhood. In her opinion the most perfect education is
the exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the
body. It helps the individual to attain
habits of virtue and manner. How to attain virtue is her main concern.
This essay is a response to
the educational and political theorist in the eighteenth century who did not
believe and propagate women’s education. Education is primary for women in
order to increase her political and social position. Apart from her husband’s identity education
will give her a self identity. In the
eighteenth century women are prevented from becoming friends and partners to
their husband for the management of domestic duties or the education of their
children. Women are essential to the nation because they educate its children
and mother is the first teacher of her child. The lesson that she teach to her
children will be influence his character formation. And also education will
change her as a better companion to her husband rather than mere wife.
Mary Wollstonecraft
argued for educational reforms. In her plan for national education system she
advocates for universal primary education for children and civil and political
rights for adults. Government should be establish “day school” for both male
and female children and teach them the same lesson. In her opinion private education will not solve
the overall problem. The private
education degrades women. Men are encouraged to exercise their thought in
relation to the past and future, as well as the present. But the women are
allowed to focus only on the present and it increases their dependence on man.
The national education system
itself plays a fundamental role in women’s right. Education is the best way for attaining
virtues and manners. By being educated
together with boys girl will learn to become free and independent. Education helps us to strengthen both our
mind and body. Education and freedom will not be make women as masculine,
instead it make her more responsible. Mary Wollstonecraft is a respectful figure in
the minds of today’s women also and her advocacy for women’s freedom and
equality is remarkable one.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Source:
Ø Leitch,
Vincent B. (Ed). The Norton Anthology of
Theory and Criticism. Newyork: Norton, 2001. 586-593. Web.
Secondary
sources:
Ø Habib,
M. A.R. A History of Literary criticism:
from Plato to the Present. Newdelhi:
Blackwell, 2006. Print.
Ø Johnson,
Nancy E. “Wollstonecraft and Godwin: Dialogues”. Pamela Client (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to British
Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Newyork: Cambridge, 2011.
101-115. Print.
Ø Mellor,
Anne K. “Mary Wollstonecraft’s A vindication of the Rights of Women and the
women writers of her day”. Claudia L. Johnson (Ed.), the Cambridge Companion to Mary
Wollstonecraft. UK: Cambridge, 2002.141- 159. Print.
Ø Rendall, Jane.
“Wollstonecraft, Vindications and Historical and Moral View of the French
Revolution.” Pamela Client (Ed.), The
Cambridge companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the
1790s. Newyork: Cambridge, 2011. 71-85. Print.
Ø Alan,
Richardson. “Mary Wollstonecraft on education”. Claudia L. Johnson (Ed.), the Cambridge Companion to Mary
Wollstonecraft. UK: Cambridge, 2002. 24-41. Print.
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