Summary Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman

Antonia Parrish-Brooks
History 1310 – Glass 9:30 am

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 8th ed. (New York, United States: Oxford University Press, 1993.)

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, originally published in 1792, is considered to be a declaration of feminism. It focuses mainly on Wollstonecraft’s idea of the need for women’s education and their equal rights to reason and rationality just as men had. Many of these ideas were based upon her reasoning of the equal creation of men and women as beings who could exercise their own thoughts. Being a woman in the eighteenth century one could expect a fair amount of unacknowledged free will and ideas. These are issues Wollstonecraft addresses,
She addresses the many previous arguments made as a justification for man’s tyranny over woman. Arguments that the “two sexes, in acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character…” only perpetuated that women were not allowed to have sufficient strength in which to acquire real virtue. However, in response to these statements Wollstonecraft argues that “allowing them [women] to have souls that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness.” Stating that if women have souls then there should be no difference between men and women when it came to obtaining virtue. With this, the opinion and outlook on women promoted the sanction that women were inferior to men. Women were seen as foolish without the realization that their folly was a result of young girls being taught to be weak, soft and excessively proud of their beauty and appearance. In most if not all cases women were taught that their looks were extremely important; weakness and phony appearance were pleasing to others. Being taught as young women that these things are most important was one of the main contributing factors to the silliness of women as they are viewed my men. According to Wollstonecraft, women are rarely independent and tend to not exercise reason most in part due to their up bring and childhood education. However, writers
The reforms that she called for would fuse public and private schools together and that opposite genders should attend school together. “But I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the same means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being, one of Rousseau's wild chimeras.” With this system Wollstonecraft argued that as the children grew older from school they would advance their studies and women would be involved in every step. Doing this would no longer leave women’s education minimal and broken, and they would not be geared straight towards marriage as women’s education already was. Wollstonecraft’s idea for education is directed towards women who are considered as simple objects of beauty but are meant to be meek and foolish. Overall the goal for education is to allow women independence, the ability to exercise reason and the capability to take on a profession. Having both men and women attend school together in this situation would allow for these goals to be met and would make women a more equal educational partner. If women received this equal education they would not be just blindly obedient to their husbands, would not need to focus so