A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women

~ The utilization of metaphors and similes throughout Mary Wollstonecraft's piece conveys the argument that she poses to society. The added effect of the powerful metaphors incorporated into her writing is evidently necessary in order to illuminate her main viewpoints. Mary Wollstonecraft compares the way women act to “mere animals” and the way “such children should be expected to act”. The comparison between mere animals and women depicts how society has stripped away women’s dignity by poorly educating them. She further explains that women are portrayed as acting like children and are not able to act like stable adults in their relationships.

Perhaps the most important thing that Wollstonecraft believes should be extended to women is education. She deems the main hindrance on women in her day is their lack of education. She strongly thought that if women were to be educated, they would be liberated, and be able to generate the same thoughts and brilliant ideas as men. On the education of women, Wollstonecraft writes:

Wollstonecraft argues that women lack the worthy object that “sufficient serious employment” (The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman, 194) furnishes. Premise of Vindication, is that the duties of the female are influenced by their education. An example of this is the aspirations to become “The Angel in the House” (Kühl, 171),

Unlike the men, Mary Wollstonecraft agreed that individual freedom was very important to society, but that it also lead to more desirable equality for woman. “Women must be allowed to find their virtue on knowledge, which is scarcely possible unless women be educated by the same pursuits as men” (Doc D). Wollstonecraft believed the primary source was to educate woman the same as men. If a woman were educated the same as men the woman would have a greater value to society.

In favor of educating women to end the inequality affecting both sexes, Wollstonecraft argues the deterioration of virtues is in result of the negligence of knowledge. According to Wollstonecraft “If women isn’t fitted by education to become a man’s companion, she will stop the process of knowledge” (Wollstonecraft 2). In other words, women who aren’t allowed to peruse an education that allows them to become as knowledgeable as a man will

In Wollstonecraft’s work, she addresses the differences between men and women as being something that should be considered negligible, but instead is used to practically enslave one half of the population. The work details how women are akin to playthings when they lack an education, and that for her to truly be herself and practice her own free will, she must be knowledgeable. However, there are many different kinds of education, Wollstonecraft points out. Men received a formal education, consisting of a proper teaching of many subjects, while also aiding the young men in personal growth. Women, on the other hand, received a much less formal education. In their day to day lives, women observed, they leeched off

In "A Vindication of the Rights of Women", Mary Wollstonecraft uses both her experience and observations as a rhetorical device in an attempt to educate women about the necessity of having both a strong mind and body. Throughout "A Vindication of the Rights of Women", Wollstonecraft emphasizes the importance of these virtues by responding to other author’s ideas on the subject and using their words as evidence of how the patriarchal society views women and their ‘roles’ as citizens of society. Wollstonecraft, in her pragmatic treatise, critiques women and their behavior in an attempt to affect change in how women are perceived and in how women perceive themselves.

Wollstonecraft’s problem with ‘women’ begins with the ambiguity of the term itself. According to her arguments women were socially constructed by an idealisation of their weaknesses and dismissal of their intelligence. She believed that women were “rendered weak and wretched” (1) by the varying social forces that kept them in a position of inferiority to men. Wollstonecraft argued that because their education has been so structured around the necessity of obtaining a husband, they form no basic reasoning skills and therefore their moral health suffers and they look to sublimate power through cunning and manipulation (41). While Wollstonecraft generally views the enactment of typical behavioural archetypes associated with women as an artificial

Since the beginning of our time here in America, our ancestors have had to fight for their many rights as human beings, and women are no exception. Women, when putting up the good fight for their personal right to vote, had to gain trust and help from other women, because most men of that time would not aid the women in earning their right to vote, because society as a whole wanted to continue to oppress women.

. “that a little knowledge of human weakness”. . . “softness of temper”. . . and “outward obedience”. . . “will obtain for them protection of man”. However, if these women should “be beautiful, everything else is needless, for at least, twenty years of their lives” (Chap II. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed, 1792, p. para. 2). Wollstonecraft implies that men are fickle creatures who after time of beauty in women passes, the man moves on in search of new lust in a younger creature. Furthermore, in three principles, Wollstonecraft defines what characteristics make men and woman

Wollstonecraft is not advocating for physical equality because in terms of nature, men are built in a more superior manner. However, one’s mind was not built to be superior or inferior depending on one’s sex. Wollstonecraft states that men have caused women’s minds to be, “rendered weak and wretched” due to the stereotypes that became embedded in minds and cultures for hundreds of years.

As one of the earliest feminist writers, Mary Wollstonecraft faced a daunting audience of critics ready to dispel her cry for the rights of women. Her powerful argument calling for equality in a society dominated by men was strong, and her ideas withstood a lot of criticism to become one of the most important feminist texts. Her argument was simple and illustrates a solution to the inequality in society. The foundation of this argument is the idea of education and how independent thought is necessary to live a virtuous and moral life. In the present state of society, women are seen as inferior to men and held in a state of ignorance. The worst effect of this

Due to their lack of educational opportunities during the Victorian era, women were more educated in domesticity, while men were taught in various subjects. Wollstonecraft describes the education that women receive to be “a disorderly kind of education” (161). If women were given equal educational opportunities as men, then it would allow them to become more empowered. Wollstonecraft states, “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience…” (163). Meaning that by providing women with a educational equivalent to men, then it would put an end to women having to be reliant on men and be able to independent. Therefore, women will not have to feel inferior to their male counterparts. She encourages women to become more empowered and challenge the gender constructs of society.

Throughout her manifesto, Wollstonecraft points out that if women were only taught to please men on a daily basis, men would grow tired causing the women to cheat. She also points out renowned writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Ten years before this, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had published his tell-all called Confessions. This was during the Romanticism period, a period where there was rejection of rationality and reason while in favor of feelings. There was more emphasis on subjectivity, the way the individual perceives their experience. From reading Vindication, you understand why Wollstonecraft wrote this. She claims that Rousseau’s view towards women were very double standard. He states that Women are smaller compared to men, both in their physical frame and mental frame. So because of that, they should all be submissive towards men. Thus, the prejudice of women being the weak and sensitive sex prevails. Both men and women, live their lives believing that women are weak minded. At an early age society teaches that a woman’s mind is weaker than a man’s mind, justifying it with the fact that a woman’s body is weaker than that of a man’s. This conclusion seems fully plausible, however if investigated further, one will find that that is not the case. A woman’s mind is as fully capable of reason as a man’s mind.

“…she asserted her view that the young girls she taught had been "enslaved" by men through their social training.” (Cheatle et al.). In the time she spent teaching, Wollstonecraft learned that women were taught from a young age to be submissive to men. For women, education was nothing beyond training for courtship, childbearing and motherhood, and Wollstonecraft greatly disagreed with such a system. Later in her life, Wollstonecraft went on to write her most famous and controversial work.