Mary Wollstonecraft was the first prominent feminist, and the whole book is in response to Rousseau. She was key in the feminist movement and influenced suffragettes, especially Virginia Wolf. ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ was not really an attack on men, but more on the superficial ideas of women and their need to become free.
She believed understanding had been denied to women and instinct, sublimated into wit and cunning, for the purposes of life has been substituted in its stead. This struck me as an interesting thought, because women were always seen as adopting the caring, nurturing and understanding role, however wit and cunning would be seen as stereotypically male traits. Perhaps her point is to reverse the roles as a form of empowerment. She had some empiricist views, and agreed with Locke in that she believed knowledge came from a person’s own observations and experiences.
She did not think that a woman only existed for a man, and saw beauty as a weakness. The idea was that women lacked reason, and she compares women to the rich throughout the chapter. This quote was originally about the rich but can be applied to women too – “to be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which they seek”.
“Civilized women are, therefore, so weakened by false refinement, that, respecting morals, their condition is much below what it would be were they left in a state nearer to nature.” This is a direct link to Rousseau and his ideas to transform mankind back to its natural primitive state.
She saw the French Revolution as an opportunity for a change in feminism.
She states how women are enslaved to their emotions as they are seen as the weaker sex – “to their senses, are women made slaves, because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power”
“Fine by defect, and amiably weak” – She talks about how women are created to feel rather to understand and that the power they obtain is from their charms and weaknesses rather than their reason. It was thought that men were made to reason, and women were made to feel. This can be taken to mean that men have power in public but at home women have more power because they are serving their purpose, therefore being strong by being weak.
The point she disagreed with Rousseau on was “the more they resemble our sex the less power they will have over us”, and her response was, “I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves”. She believed women wanted it for themselves, not to be better than men. What Wollstonecraft and Rousseau agreed on though, was to “educate women like men”.
One of her main issues was with polygamy. Her idea was that because women are the stronger sex, there are more women in the world, and the stronger sex would dominate and produce a stronger sex baby, therefore there would be a sort of female cycle. Men would then become weaker, and women would be stronger. However, she did believe the best way to be was married – one man and one woman.
She believed women matured much quicker than men, a fact which is still debated over today, and that female beauty is the perfection of a woman visually, whereas male beauty was judged by the mind and the strength of the body. I found this interesting because I think it’s still very evident today; I feel like women are more judged on their appearances, especially in the celebrity culture and column or tabloid journalism especially.
Another key point of hers was when a men seduces a woman, the man should then legally be obliged to maintain the woman and her children, regardless of the situation. I couldn’t help but apply this to modern relationships; perhaps it would be a good way of reducing teen pregnancy?!
Her big point was about education. She was incredibly angry at how women were degraded, especially in terms of education and compared to a well-educated man. Women were generally given a low standard of education for domestic jobs like sewing. They were not allowed any goals of aims; the main aim of the woman was to get married, only then had they achieved their life goal.
This raised the point of women looking after the children. Even though it is less odd to have a househusband these days, why should men automatically assume the role of the breadwinner? She believed women should be a real companion to their husbands and not just a slave, feeling power had been denied to women.
A couple of questions were raised with regard to gender expectations and generalizations;
- Why does a man have to hold a door for a woman?
- Why does a man have to pull out the chair for a woman?
For the first question we thought society had moved on and anybody holds a door open for anybody these days, not just men for women, but the latter question still applied. Why is it assumed the woman cannot do this for herself, or is it just a question of whether or not chivalry is dead? From childhood men were educated to earn money and provide for their families; was this unfair to women?
We discussed the fact that men and women are not born equally physically, but now is it seen that principally we are born equal? We may never know our purpose in life as a man or a woman, but it shouldn’t matter what gender we are either way.
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