Mary Wollstonecraft – On the Rights of Women

Wollstonecraft's Argument Against the Tyranny of Men

Wollstonecraft argues against the notion that men and women should aim for different characters or virtues.
She posits that if women have souls, there should be one path to virtue or happiness for all mankind, as appointed by Providence.

The Ignorance of Women and Its Consequences

Wollstonecraft challenges the practice of keeping women in ignorance under the guise of innocence.
She attributes the follies and caprices of women to their lack of proper education and the resulting instability of mind.
Women are taught from infancy to prioritize cunning, softness, obedience, and propriety to gain male protection, especially if they are beautiful.

Critique of Milton and Rousseau

Wollstonecraft critiques Milton's description of women as being formed for softness and attractive grace, suggesting it implies a deprivation of their souls.
She questions the advice that women should render themselves gentle and domestic, likening it to treating them as brutes.
She references Lord Bacon's quote, stating, ‘man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature!’
She opposes men who attempt to control women by keeping them in a state of perpetual childhood.
Wollstonecraft contrasts this with Rousseau, who wished to stop the progress of reason in both sexes, but notes that women, despite imperfect cultivation, will seek knowledge.
She argues that innocence should not be a term applied to adults, as it is a euphemism for weakness.
Wollstonecraft insists that women must be allowed to access the fountain of light (knowledge and reason) to develop stability of character and fulfill their destiny of acquiring human virtues.

Education and Societal Influence

Wollstonecraft advocates for individual education that sharpens the senses, forms the temper, regulates passions, and sets the understanding to work early in life.
She acknowledges that societal opinions and manners significantly educate individuals, giving a family character to each century.
She asserts that despite societal influences, every being can become virtuous through the exercise of their reason.
She dismisses the idea of a being created with inherently vicious inclinations, as it leads to atheism or a flawed concept of God.
Wollstonecraft defines the most perfect education as one that strengthens the body and forms the heart, enabling individuals to attain habits of virtue and independence.

Critique of Contemporary Views on Female Education

Wollstonecraft criticizes writers like Rousseau and Dr. Gregory for making women more artificial and weaker, thus rendering them less useful to society.
She believes their works degrade women by prioritizing pleasing men over developing solid virtues.
She argues that if men achieve perfection of mind at maturity, it might be reasonable for a wife to rely on her husband’s understanding.
She satirizes the reality that both husbands and wives are often immature, undermining the idea of men leading women.

Order and Understanding

Wollstonecraft identifies the disregard for order in women's education as a significant cause of their enslavement.
She contrasts this with men, who are trained in method from infancy.
She describes women's knowledge as desultory, gained from observations on real life rather than systematic study.
She points out that women's learning is secondary to domestic employments and is often acquired in snatches, lacking the perseverance needed for intellectual vigor.
She explains that society requires only superficial learning for gentlemen, but women's education subordinates understanding to corporeal accomplishments.
She notes that women's faculties are not stimulated by emulation, causing their natural sagacity to focus prematurely on life and manners rather than principles.

Parallels Between Women and Military Men

Wollstonecraft likens the superficial knowledge and manners-focused education of women to that of military men.
Both groups acquire knowledge from conversation and society rather than judgment formed by speculation and experience.
She asserts that both women and soldiers practice minor virtues with punctilious politeness, attributable to their similar education, with the key difference being men's greater liberty to experience life.
She argues that standing armies consist of well-disciplined machines rather than men of deep understanding or strong passions, drawing a parallel to women's limited intellectual development.
She views that officers and women both tend to be particularly attentive to their persons and fond of social gatherings, further blurring the lines.

Critique of Societal Distinctions

Wollstonecraft criticizes that both women and soldiers acquire manners before morals, and knowledge of life before understanding human nature.
Satisfied with common nature, they become prejudiced and blindly submit to authority, relying on instinctive glances rather than analyzed opinions.
She states that riches and hereditary honors turn women into ciphers, while idleness introduces gallantry and despotism into society.

The Trap of Blind Obedience

Wollstonecraft asserts that strengthening the female mind ends blind obedience, which is sought by tyrants and sensualists seeking slaves and playthings, respectively.
She points to Rousseau's character of Sophia as captivating but unnatural, attacking the principles on which her education was built.
She contrasts Rousseau’s admiration for virtue with his focus on trivial details like a pretty foot and enticing airs.
She states that humble, mutual love without intellectual pursuits excites tenderness rather than respect, akin to the fondness felt for playing children or animals.

The Moral Being of Women

Wollstonecraft contends that women should be viewed as moral beings, not weak creatures subjected to men.
She challenges Rousseau’s assertion that women should never feel independent and should be governed by fear and cunning to be alluring objects of desire.
She deems it nonsensical to demand unrelenting rigor in impressing obedience upon women.
She states that if women are naturally inferior, their virtues should still be the same in quality as men's but differ in degree.
She says that women’s conduct should be based on the same principles and aims as men's, with the ultimate goal of developing their faculties and achieving conscious virtue.

Challenging the Notion of Female Subservience

Wollstonecraft challenges the idea that women were created for men, originating from Moses’s story, arguing it’s a convenient justification for male subjugation.
She clarifies that she does not seek to invert the order of things but argues that while men may attain a greater degree of virtue due to their physical constitution, the nature of virtue remains the same for both sexes.
She insists on the same simple direction for virtue in both sexes, aligning with the belief in a singular God.

Critique of Love and Pleasing as Primary Goals

Wollstonecraft critiques the idea that women should be degraded by being made subservient to love or lust.
She challenges the notion that female education should primarily focus on pleasing men, asserting that marriage cannot eradicate lifelong habits.
She argues that a woman taught only to please will find her charms fading and may seek attention from other men when her husband ceases to be a lover.

Dangers of Pleasing

Wollstonecraft argues that the great art of pleasing is only useful to a mistress, while a wife and mother should see it as a polish to her virtues.
She believes a woman should aim to be respectable and not rely solely on her husband for happiness.
She disapproves of Dr. Gregory’s advice in “Legacy to his Daughters” to cultivate a fondness for dress and recommends dissimulation.
She believes that women should be honest about their feelings and capabilities and should not be restrained by indecent cautions.

Independence and Strength

Wollstonecraft posits that a woman who strengthens her body and mind becomes a friend to her husband, not a dependent.
She argues that such a woman will not need to feign weakness or conceal her affection to maintain her husband’s regard.
She observes that historically, women who distinguished themselves were not the most beautiful or gentle.
She criticizes Dr. Gregory’s advice that a wife should never reveal the extent of her sensibility or affection to her husband.
She asserts that love is, by nature, transitory and that friendship is the most holy bond of society.

Friendship vs. Love

Wollstonecraft contrasts love with friendship, noting that love is based on chance and sensation, while friendship requires intellect and respect.
She states that friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love and that passions give way to mere appetites once the object is gained.
She argues that a master and mistress of a family should not continue to love each other with passion but should focus on duties and moral character.
She suggests that an unhappy marriage can sometimes be advantageous to a family if the female mind is more enlarged, as it allows for the development of wisdom and experience.

Truth and Virtue

Wollstonecraft suggests that if life were only for the present, the pursuit of fleeting pleasures would be reasonable.
She contends that falsehood in conduct is unnecessary and that the female mind should not be tainted by coquetish arts.
She advocates for reason to guide passion and for the pursuit of virtue and knowledge to rise above emotions.
She dismisses romantic passion as true only to sentiment and fueled by absence and melancholy.
She criticizes Dr. Gregory’s advice against acquiring delicacy of sentiment if one intends to marry, viewing it as a narrow-minded perspective.

Cultivating the Mind

Wollstonecraft argues that all faculties of a woman’s mind should be cultivated, regardless of her marital status.
She believes that acquiring qualities that ennoble a rational being is more important than catering to a husband’s frailties.
She contends that a well-stored mind enables a woman to support a single life with dignity and makes her more independent of life's casualties.
She questions the utility of improved taste if it does not make one more independent and open new sources of enjoyment.

Condescension vs. Grandeur

Wollstonecraft contrasts gentleness as a Godlike quality with its submissive, dependent form, as expected of women.
She criticizes the idea of fair defects and amiable weaknesses, questioning the standard of morals applied to women.
She argues that while men are prepared for a future state, women are advised only to provide for the present, with gentleness and docility as their cardinal virtues.

Weakness vs. Strength

Wollstonecraft questions whether passive, indolent women make the best wives and argues that women with superficial accomplishments do not necessarily contribute to their husbands' happiness.
She views history as disclosing marks of women's inferiority and oppression, with few exceptions.
She suggests that extraordinary women who defy prescribed roles may be male spirits trapped in female frames.
She concludes that men have increased women's inferiority by limiting their faculties and virtues and calls for allowing women's faculties the room to unfold so their place in the intellectual scale can be accurately determined.

Rationality and Virtue

Wollstonecraft asserts that morality has an eternal foundation and whoever sacrifices virtue for convenience cannot be an accountable creature.
She expresses her indignation towards the mistaken notions that enslave women.
She declares that her submission is to reason, not to man, and that the conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by its own reason.
She advocates for women to be treated as rational creatures, not slaves or brutes, and to be given the same principles and curbs as men.

Insulated Females

Wollstonecraft observes that females have been insulated, stripped of virtues, and decorated with artificial graces for short-lived tyranny.
She views that love has replaced nobler passions, making women prioritize being fair over being respected, which destroys character.
She argues that liberty is the mother of virtue and that enslaved women languish like exotics.
She points out the subjugation of women and retorts on men, noting that the many have always been enthralled by the few.
She infers that as sound politics diffuse liberty, both mankind, and women, will become wiser and more virtuous.