Mary Wollstonecraft seminar

Mary Wollstonecraft is considered the first feminist for her attitude towards the rights of women in the late 18^th century.  Her thoughts in ‘A vindication of the rights of women’ criticises women’s role in the lack of right for women, as well as men society and the education that women receive compared to men. Her thoughts are closely linked to the French revolution and Rousseau’s ideas of total equality.

Wollstonecraft feels that she is degraded by men and that women are robbed of dignity and denied ‘genius and judgment’ by the education system which denies women the same education as men. Wollstonecraft believed that women have the same potential as men but only education separates them. Her feelings were that sex should not get in the way of her or any woman gaining an education.

Wollstonecraft dislikes that women only exist for man and feels that they have always been slaves to man with ‘obstacles put in the way to prevent the cultivation of female understanding’. She believes that women have very little purpose in life and are made to care about trivial matters rather than having duties and responsibilities like men do. Women have to worry about matters such as marriage which shapes their future and therefore have to ‘marry advantageously’ whereas men do not have these worries.  

She also dislikes the dependence that women have on men and criticises women for accepting and conforming to this rather than playing upon the dependence. This raised some very interesting opinions from both the males and females in the seminar, with one member in the group suggesting that she would love the ‘life of luxury’ and not having to have any serious matters of responsibility or duties.  She explains that women are inferior in society and that by looking to gain respect from strangers, allowing men to open doors for them, and by allowing men to control them, they are allowing men to have their way and understand that they are in control; giving women  a taste of equality.  This is compared to a master becoming a servant for a day allowing the servant a taste of the master’s life but then taking this away after a day; deluded respect is shown, and this is exactly the same with men and women in the late 18^th century.

Wollstonecraft’s example of a king being born a king and having inherited respected and a woman being born a woman without respect, but a man being born whatever he wants to be, shows the attitude of the time that women were inferior and that nothing would change this.  

Her feeling is that women should reject the courteous and royal treatment given by men, and instead should learn to want to do these things themselves. Again linking this back to educated Wollstonecraft believed that by gaining the same education this behaviour could be eradicated.

The want of comfort from men and only pleasure from life, is ‘women’s only defect’ according to Mary Wollstonecraft’  as she looks to give women every credit despite her criticism of women’s behaviour.

Her ideas have been viewed as extremely important by many feminists, however I still believe that despite her early ideas of equality, even today there are still views in society of roles which should be for men and different roles for women, meaning that despite her ideas having a great effect on challenging the norm of the time, there are still a few examples of what she was fighting against, still around in today’s society.