Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women

Thesis: In her piece "Vindicatino of the Rights of Women", Wollstonecraft attacks the restrictions set up by men as immoral and against the Reason that the new France is to be founded upon.

I. Neglected Education
A. Conduct and manners of women prove that they are not in a healthy state. Likely from lack of education.
B. False system of education based from books written by men.
II. Women viewed physically inferior to men (by men)
III. Strength/Mind - Importance of improvement/Restriction by men
A. The strengthening of these aspects for women is surrendered to the libertine pursuit of beauty.
B. Women hindered by marriage being the only way for them to rise in the world.
C. Wollstonecraft's belief: If women are not prepared by education, they will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue.
D. Without education, women can not be true patriots, and thus can not pass that trait down to their children.
E. Women unable to improve mind and physical strength as a result of man's "crushing" of reason.
F. Attack of the New Constitution - If the French plan to be truly Democratic, then they can not restrict women, or they will always be in that way tyrannical.
G. Men only treat women as trust servants and only love a woman on account of her sex.
H. Women are restricted to menial professions, and thus are kept from learning about them.
IV. Final idea: If men were to cut their restrictive "chains," then women will be more observant, affectionate, and faithful. The women deserve their rights, and it is the fact that they are not receiving them that causes their extreme dissatisfaction.

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