In her treatise, Wollstonecraft recognizes the current trends of intellectual thought in her society, specifically noting the method of analyzing first principles in search of the most simple truths, and daringly picks out the obvious flaws and prejudices inherent in the intellectuals' subsequent claims. Reason, they say, gives man power over lesser beings. The acquirement of virtue exalts one man over another. Experience grants man a degree of knowledge higher than that of the lesser beings. And finally, men employ their reason to justify prejudices rather than dispelling them, though such prejudices have clouded reason. This example and more flaws in society are the causes of its corrupt state– a state that enslaves women by constricting their education and subjecting them to obedience.
Furthermore, upon reading the selection in our textbook from A Vindication, I noted several similarities to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration, written almost a century later. Within this declaration, which functions as a mockery of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Stanton lists her "grievances" as she pinpoints the repeated injuries and usurpations of women on the part of man throughout history. One grievance accuses man of having "destroyed [a woman's] confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect...", which directly echoes Wollstonecraft's criticism. In Wollstonecraft's treatise, she notes, "...that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement" and that "men endeavor to sink [women] lower, merely to render [them] alluring objects for a moment." Stanton's evident familiarity with and respect for the works of her bombastic predessesor gives Wollstonecraft's influence a new weight, and certainly makes women around the world endlessly appreciative of her radically progressive role during the Enlightenment.
After reading A Vindication of the Rights of Women, do you agree with Wollstonecraft's claims that women, who are oppressed by men, also embrace that oppression? Is it impressive that those ideas were born as early as 1792? Finally, what do you think about her statement that "it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason."?
And finally, though it's slightly unrelated...
source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQhRCs9IHM
ECS Seneca Falls source: http://feminism.eserver.org/history/docs/seneca-falls.txt/document_view
In regard to the current ideas of women about themselves, I will say that I know there are many women today who view themselves in a positive light despite any negative gender stereotypes which still circulate and re-surge within our society. I cannot speak for other nations' social orders or gender ideologies, so I will concentrate on the U.S. when I say that women today are just as accepted in most facets of society and its niches as men. However, this acceptance is not necessarily easily arrived at in all cases. Generally speaking, I believe that the motivation to challenge any existing gender stereotypes - which might be purported to hold women back from achieving as much as men of equal qualifications - stems from women's upbringings and the degree to which they embrace or challenge them. For instance, if I were brought up in the tradition of a Southern Baptist church, in which women are denied the privilege of serving as deacons/preachers I might develop a personal ideology that the way women "should" conduct themselves does not involve attempting church leadership, and my reasons for believing so might strongly root from why I am told I should have these ideas. However, I could on the other hand reject this idea and convert to another belief system or organization welcoming of female leadership. I can speak personally on this topic because this is exactly what I did a few years ago. Therefore it is in my experience the duty of each free-thinking woman to either accept and resign herself to what she is capable of within whichever facets of society she finds herself; or to discern and decide for herself where her place should be, what her capabilities are, and what she is going to achieve, and then to seize upon those ideas.
ReplyDeleteSubmission is submission. Unfortunately, many women resign themselves to mediocrity or unfulfilled lives due to societal pressures. Often times, societal norms and cultural expectations make them feel as though the pursuit of alternative actions is unnatural or impossible, resulting in regret for lost opportunities in later life. However, the entirety of this regret is not found in society, but within the individual. Regret becomes all the more intense when one realizes that she could have changed it. She is her own undoing.
ReplyDeleteThis being said, I do not see an individual that chooses a societal role, such as a housewife, as an oppressed figure. If that is what she desires to do, then power to them.
I definitely agree that women of the time embraced submission, but not of their own will. It is indeed amazing that women's rights were being fought for as early as the late 18th century! Considering it still took another century and a half for women to gain the right of suffrage in America, works such as those by Wollstonecraft were clearly the only the tip of the iceberg. Women of the 18th and 19th centuries were fighting against millennium-old societal norms regarding the role of women. As for the quote, I believe it brings us back around to the question of the worth of reason as a means to be virtuous, and we've seen that even in reason there are many flaws. I'm sure men of the time easily "reasoned" their way to their opinions about the role of women.
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