Analysis Of The Radical Ideas By Mary Wollstonecraft

Continuing, Wollstonecraft also focuses on the education system of the 18th century as continuing a dilemma, in which women are trained to focus upon their bodies and sexuality. Similar to Rousseau, who divides women into the categories of “good and dissolute, or whores,” Wollstonecraft also categorizes women based on their vanity and their sexuality. Accordingly, Wollstonecraft attempts to base the vindication of a woman’s rights upon her ability to distance herself from her physical appearance or sexuality, by condemning vanity and sexuality as a means for re-classify a woman from her position as a wife to mistress, diminishing the societal worth and self-worth of a female. Consequently, the focus on a woman’s role as a modest wife and mother
In order for women to be able to immerse themselves within the working world of the public sphere, Wollstonecraft discusses the necessity of having a “servant maid to take off…the servile part of the household business”. In order to afford such a service, as discussed by Susan Ferguson within The Radical Ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft, a woman must possess some wealth and be within an economic class that would provide her with the convenience of having the opportunity to hire help. Through promoting the idea of a policy that would exclude those with a lower economic status, while continuing to comprehend the idea of “working woman,” it appears that most of Wollstonecraft’s theories regarding women’s rights specifically addresses the rights of middle class women, who have both the luxury to hire help and the necessity to tackle the work
The idea of consent is one of the central elements missing from Wollstonecraft’s vindication of women’s rights, as she asserts only her perception of what a woman should be and how every woman should participate within society. As Carole Pateman discusses in Women and Consent if the “freedom and equality [of women] is to be preserved, free and equal individuals must voluntarily commit themselves through consent”. However, through Wollstonecraft’s determination to typecast women, women are forced to assimilate into a specified social role in order to be considered to be a woman worthy of vindication. Wollstonecraft even suggests the political and societal coercion of women by the state towards preserving the natural duties of women. Once again, restraining a woman’s opportunity for choice. Although, Wollstonecraft outlines her intent as being based on the removal of the objectification and hyper-sexualization of women by men, a women’s choice to embrace her body and sexuality should not also be denied. The focus upon marriage and a woman’s role to please her husband, now through her intelligence rather than her body, still emphasizes the patriarchal idea that symbolizes women as property within her marriage. The only difference is Wollstonecraft suggests society fetishize a woman’s ability to hold