The French diplomat and former bishop Talleyrand-Perigord
You are content writer. You have to add headings with html tags
or for any of paragraphs in original text.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women's historical context
A Vindication of the Rights of Women's historical context
The French diplomat and former bishop Talleyrand-Perigord is the primary target of Wollstonecraft's arguments. She makes the decision to dedicate her book to him after perusing his pamphlet on education while she was in France. She has also been inspired to write about women's rights and responsibilities as well as ways in which their position should advance the improvement of the principles that give morality its substance because of her concern for the welfare of the human species.
The Enlightenment as a context
A Vindication of the Rights of Women's historical context must be understood in the context of the Enlightenment as one of the movements with complex and contradictory political, philosophical, and religious consequences. According to Immanuel Kant’s essay on the definition of Enlightenment, he says that “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another” (Kant 54). Wollstonecraft knew Kant’s work through interaction with her continental friends and her translation work from Germany. Moreover, the Enlightenment was based on the belief in the power for a reason of discovering binding morals, philosophical, and scientific truths that led to the undermining of the old traditions and old prejudices. Therefore, everyone had got access to enlightenment, and subsequently, everyone needs to make a choice to bound by its verdicts. Wollstonecraft insisted on the rationality of women, and she had to draw out the radically democratic implications that were present in the Enlightenment project (Todd 120).
The balance between reason and emotion
The emphasis of Enlightenment is the reason created in turn of a lively conversation concerning its seeming opposite: emotion. During the time that Wollstonecraft wrote her book, the notion that emotion fitted to the women’s private sphere and motive to the men’s public realm had become so frequent and it was controversial (Todd 118). When Wollstonecraft is critiquing her specific target, she recalls Rousseau’s educational novel “Emile” where the author depicts Sophie, whose an ideal woman raised to be sweet, submissive with the purpose of pleasing her husband. However, those who thought of enlightenment from Spinoza to Hobbes to Hume were concerned with the study of affections or passion, which were the large majority not openly tied to the gender roles. On the emphasis on the roles of the affections when creating new social relations, especially through family, Wollstonecraft is placing herself in thinking traditionally by seeing the passions as closely tied to the public sphere.
The radical dimension of the argument
Politically, the radical dimension to the argument of Wollstonecraft makes her fit in the company of a loose group of thinkers that are often known as “the Radical Enlightenment” (Kant). Instead of more traditional thinkers like Locke, who sort to understand the ideals of Enlightenment via steady reforms, the Radical Enlightenment members thought that the progress could only take place when past institutions and social structure are swept away. Just like radical thinkers of the period, Wollstonecraft had more hopes for egalitarian future that was based on the French Revolution.
The role of religion
Wollstonecraft portrays a complicated role of religion in her work. According to her beliefs, people could follow virtue which is a divine gift through the use of reason (Taylor 99). Consequently, Wollstonecraft arguments drew many traditionally Christian thinkers like Dr. Richard Price who is a leader of Dissenter community, who contended that all souls were equal in the presence of the God, and needed equivalent education for the purpose of avoiding being over-dependent on the esteem of others.
Challenging traditional roles
Women at that particular time challenged the ideas of the fact the that the error of enlightenment was viewed in the aspect of rationality and individualism and began questioning their roles in the society. Different modern thinkers often see women and men as separate identities like in the Rousseau. Often than not, women were viewed as mothers of children in a family as well as caretakers of the household chores.
The intellect and society
According to Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, enlightenment makes women begin developing a new intellect. Besides, women combined traditional domestic private affairs with the ideas public sector created ideas where they were in a position of obtaining knowledge as well as gaining literary support. "The great misfortune is this, that they both acquire manners before morals and a knowledge of life before they have from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credit, they blindly submit to authority." (Wollstonecraft 24). Also, women developed critical thinking techniques, participate in the society in different ways as opposed to being caretakers of household chores.
The demand for equal opportunities
In the Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the rights of women, she believed that educated women are sources of strength to the community and could be equal to their husbands in the community. Therefore, she still believes that women should maintain traditional roles as wives and mothers in the society. However, she did not demand equal rights, but she simply had a belief that it is important for women to acquire a formal education for the purpose of contributing to the society with their male colleagues.
Women's struggle for equal rights
During that time woman took part in more radical approach for equal rights and liberty compared to men. According to Lock’s principles of natural rights, women view themselves as equal to men when it comes to receiving natural rights (Donald). Like many Enlightenment thinkers, Wollstonecraft becomes concerned with the nature and effects of individualism, specifically their implications on the women’s conditions in the society. Moreover, in Wollstonecraft view, women were demoted to play the role of domestic activities and household chores since they had no substantive political or economic resource to the society.
Emphasizing equal treatment
Contrarily, men were enjoying unconcealed inheritance rights, had the capability of exploring the vocational and intellectual opportunities that were not available to women, and had voting privileges. Wollstonecraft contended that access of women to professional training results in their economic and legal emancipation. Therefore, Wollstonecraft had no intention of women having an entitlement to control men but control themselves.
Equality in virtue
"If women are by nature inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim." (Wollstonecraft 26). In this argument, Wollstonecraft makes a challenge to her work that naturally, from a moral perspective, women are inferior to men. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others, they believed that women are naturally inferior to men (Perkins 72), but Wollstonecraft distressed this belief arguing that both sexes were endowed with souls from the Creator and are in a position of developing their endeavor for perfecting their virtues even though men are physically superior to women. Additionally, although men had the ability to demonstrate capabilities to be virtuous compared to women, every individual had a similar virtue they were striving for.
Reason over emotion
"In the Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, women do not oversee their views by rationality and vision, but rather prefer being governed by sentiments and emotions. "All their thoughts turn on things calculated to excite emotion; and, feeling, when they should reason, their conduct is unstable, and their opinions are wavering, not the wavering produced by deliberation or progressive views, but by contradictory emotions." (Wollstonecraft 61). Therefore, Wollstonecraft argues that fickleness of women results from living on the foundation of changing emotions as opposed to their reason that means making rational decisions.
Critique of the British government
Wollstonecraft debt to Enlightenment thinkers is evident in her discussion about the children, parents, wives and husbands. "The whole system of British politics, if system it may courteously be called, consisting in multiplying dependents and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich ..." (Wollstonecraft 143). The quote summarizes the frustration with the British government she encountered, the period when she was writing, which created a welfare state by over taxation of the poor for the purpose of serving projects that are preferred by the wealthy.
Wollstonecraft's influence and concluding thoughts
In conclusion, Wollstonecraft used various genres such as critical reviews, translations, and philosophical treaties among others. In her work Vindication of the Rights of Women, she proved to be so influential. Some traditionalists criticized her, but her opinionated protection of liberal feminism never made her abandon her support for the traditional commitments of women to their domestic duty and roles. Wollstonecraft had provocative and essential opinions of any Enlightenment thinker. Additionally, she fought primarily for the rights of women, but at the same time believed that equal rights and treatment should be given to everyone irrespective of the gender.
The unequal education system
Moreover, she realized that there was unequal education system with men being given highest priority than women. She consequently, believed that unequal education system was meant to keep women uninformed and indoors for the purpose of sticking to their domestic roles in the society. Wollstonecraft believed that there were unfair marital rights for women, thus, terming marriage as a legal form of prostitution and slavery. Besides, she felt that women could play a more projecting role in the community and do similar jobs as men if they were given equal treatment.
Work Cited
Donald, James A. "Natural law and natural rights." Jim. com, http://jim. com/rights. html (2015): 60-65. Web.
Kant, Immanuel. " What is Enlightenment?" In Kant: Political Writings (1991): 54 - 60.
Perkins, Merle L. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On The Individual and Society. University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Web.
Taylor, Barbara. "The Religious Foundations of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Feminism." In The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft (2002): 99- 118.
Todd, Janet. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life. London: eidenfel and Nicholson, 2000.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Vindication of the Rights of Women . Cambridge University Press, 1792. Web.
