A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

5 Responses to “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects”

1. Katherine Kohler says:

   August 19, 2010 at 3:14 am

   Thanks, it got here quick and is in excellent condition.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
2. Anonymous says:

   August 19, 2010 at 5:07 am

   This is an brilliant book. Mary Wollstonecraft proves herself to be an extremely wise, intelligent and insightful woman. Although the position of woman in the society do not correspond exactly to the one described by Wollstonecraft, there are certainly twentieth century contemporaries to the methods used to subjugate woman 200 years ago.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
3. Martin Asiner says:

   August 19, 2010 at 7:18 am

   In both the Preface and the Introduction, Wollstonecraft emphasizes what she sees as the root cause of the failure of men to treat women as equals. Men discourage women from achieving the same education that men routinely are agreed, and as long as women are denied this education, then they can never hope to achieve social and economic parity with men. In her opening remarks to Talleyrand, she is gently optimistic that her powers of persuasion will be sufficient such that he “will not throw my work aside.” Her additional comments are couched in similar conciliatory terms: “I call upon you, therefore, now to weigh what I have advanced respecting the rights of women.”

   It is not only the lack of educational opportunity for women that rouses Wollstonecraft’s ire. She connects this lack with a all-purpose lack of respect to a morality that has become “an empty name.” Men cannot acknowledge morality in women unless they can first buy it in their own persons. The only way, she notes, for men to do both is for them to permit women to have sufficient access to education that will lead women to buy virtue. Wollstonecraft suggests that virtue in women cannot occur until men respect them enough for women to feel virtuous. As long as men see women as trophy wives, alluring mistresses, and idolized objects of unneeded Renaissance gallantry, then the oppression of women will continue under a paternalistic hand. Wollstonecraft’s annoyance clearly is evident when she considers that men have appointed themselves the gender guardian of what is best for women: “Who made man the exclusive judge if women consume with him the gift of reason?” Throughout history, she continues, tyrants of all stripes have been “keen to crush reason; yet permanently assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful.” Men of Wollstonecraft’s day are very much like the tyrants of ex- eras, and the female victims of the present are no less oppressed than all the victims of the past.

   Wollstonecraft roundly condemns men for their own dearth of virtue in that when men see no need to expect virtue in women, then they feel no necessity to show it themselves. The result of this failure to expect or exhibit virtue is their seeking extra-marital affairs, a state she terms a “box of mischief.” When men stray in this manner, their wives may follow suit or even neglect their children. All that remains for such women is to seek to take by cunning and guile what their men ought to dispense freely.

   In the Introduction, Wollstonecraft builds upon the same thought that women are deprived of equality by being denied a proper education. Surprisingly enough, she does not lay the blame squarely on men. Wollstonecraft writes of various faults that women commit that enable men to get away with such heavy-handed actions. She writes as if women are small more than clay figurines to be molded exclusively by men: “The minds of women are enfeebled by fake refinement.” This “enfeeblement” has its origins in a heap of sources, all of which women are seemingly unable to resist. She writes of “books of instruction” (written by men of genius) which intent to be models of delicate feminine behavior. It is unclear from context whether “genius” is meant ironically. Even more incredibly, Wollstonecraft admits flat out that in some respects at least, men are biologically superior to women: “In the government of the physical world, it is observable that the female, in all-purpose, is second-rate to the male. The male pursues, the female yields–this is the law of scenery.” She adds that “this physical superiority cannot be denied.” She does grant that men take unfair advantage of this immutable law of scenery by widening what should be merely a biological gap into a sociological gap: “But not content with this natural pre-eminence, men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for the moment.” Women, it follows, cannot help but be “intoxicated by the worship which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them.”

   The might and persuasiveness of Wollstonecraft’s opinion are diluted by her being unable to detach herself from her painstakingly middle-class status. Persons who reside above her on the economic ladder seemingly reside in a universe unconcerned by matters that tell to persons lower on the scale. She, as one of the middle class, is in a “natural state,” and thus agreeable to the laws of scenery and the power of speechifying. Persons who are of the upper class are “weak, artificial beings raised above the common wants and affections of their race, and in a premature unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!” Such women are to be pitied since their education “tends to render them vain and helpless.” What Wollstonecraft does not acknowledge is that such female vanity and helplessness are not limited to the empty-headed women of the rich. In fact, it is these very traits that she so lamentably bemoans that are so entrenched in the females of her own middle class. Life, for these rich women, is limited to a useless search for amusement in a world bereft of it.

   Wollstonecraft further suggests that women are at least partially to blame for their unchivalrous treatment by men. She assumes that agreed the least amount of gallantry by men that women will immediately assume the fawning traits of docility that so enrage her: “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, as a replacement for of satisfying their FASCINATING graces and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” The privileged male tactic to suppress and dominate women is to show untoward gallantry and excessive politeness at all times. Wollstonecraft terms all such patriarchal barbarities as “the soft axiom, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste,” all of which inevitably lead to such actions as “nearly synonymous with epithets of weakness,” From these actions by men, she concludes that “persons pretty feminine phrases” do no more than to engender a “weak elegance of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners” in women. Thus, in comparing the elegance of gallantry to the endurance of virtue, women may seek the latter but settle for the ex-.

   The language and style of her book have caused future critics to discern a disparity between the clearly stated message and the less clearly phrased speechifying. On one hand, Wollstonecraft promises that her writing will be the very personification of simplicity and conciseness, yet on the additional the content belies the asserted intent. She writes of her proposed simplicity: “I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style–I aim at being useful; and sincerity will render me unaffected; for wishing rather than to persuade by the force of my opinion, than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the pretentious bombast of artificial feelings, which coming from the head, never reach the heart.” This sounds very much as if she places considerable urgency in keeping matters expressed as clear and unaffected as possible. Flowery diction, then, ought to have no place in her book. But, at the start of her Introduction, she uses a series of botanical descriptions whose elegance is forward:

   “The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove, that their minds are not in a healthy state; for like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, might and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a dainty eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived in maturity. One cause of this lonely budding I attribute to a fake system of education.”

   The issues of apparent inferiority raised in both the Preface and Introduction are revisited in later chapters of Wollstonecraft’s book. Each time that she considers why men are permitted to so painstakingly dominate women, she more regularly than not implies that there is some defect lurking within women that men are quick to expand upon to justify a series of patriarchal actions that are no less than tyrannous despite the ostensible gallantry with which they are couched.

   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
4. Martin Asiner says:

   August 19, 2010 at 9:44 am

   When Charles Maurice de Talleyrand wrote that the education of women should be limited to the home, Mary Wollstonecraft was annoyed enough to respond by directly addressing him in her Preface. She starts politely with “I am confident you will not throw my work aside” and follows with her hope that he will “weigh what I have advanced respecting the rights of women.” Wollstonecraft’s entire plea for the rights of women is phrased as a plea for the advancement of both men and women. She writes that men cannot see themselves as advanced beings unless they treat women as equals. She notes that in France, women are seen as distinctively lower than they are in England: “In France the very essence of sensuality has been extracted to regale the voluptuary and a kind of sentimental lust has prevailed, which…has agreed a sinister sort of level-headedness to the French character.” As a result, modesty “has been more grossly insulted in France than even in England.”

   Wollstonecraft sees a direct link between manners and morals. When manners are permitted to be corrupted, it follows that “morality becomes an empty name.” She insists that not only must men admit modesty in women but they must also cultivate it within themselves. This inculcation, she writes, is inextricably tied to education for women: “If she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge.” It is only when the excellent manners of men lead to a widespread restoration of chaste morals in women that the latter can achieve lasting and right virtue. Part of the problem, she writes, is that men embroider or idolize the male notion of female sexuality to the extant that men feel the need to protect women from their own lascivious scenery. As far as protecting women and deciding what is in their best interests are concerned, “Who made man the exclusive judge?” Wollstonecraft writes that many tyrants of the past have used similar logic to justify cruelty against a minority in that the reasoning of the tyrant surpasses that of the victim. Reason may be used as a faithful guide toward progress only when it is evenhandedly applied to all. When reason is used as a guide rather than a hammer, then the understanding in women that reason would engender would make it likely that women would be better and fitter companions for men. When men use reason as a hammer, then men become tyrants and women victims, and as victims will refuse to remain forever as bonded prisoners in their homes. Men as tyrants will seek extramarital affairs; women may be inclined to do likewise. In this miserable state, she laments, “What is to preserve private virtue?” When women see reason used against them, then they will have small option but to achieve by low cunning what open virtue cannot.

   In the Introduction, Wollstonecraft indicates the driving reason for her writing of this book, that she has “a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore.” This misery lies in her conviction that women are theme to overly fawning men who increase the belief in women that they are “rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes.” She sees the primary cause as the deliberate miseducation of women, the purpose of which is to heighten their attraction to men as sexual objects and trophy wives rather than to increase their utility as rational wives. Women who gladly primp and focus on their looks do themselves and their men a disservice: “The civilized women of the present century…are only nervous to inspire like, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition,” which she soon identifies as virtue.

   Wollstonecraft lists various ways by which men induce women to see themselves only as superficial adjuncts to men. She mentions “books of instruction” which intent to outline how women ought to behave in the company of men. Such books, she notes with a touch of sarcasm, are written by “men of genius.” She further notes that these instruction books are similar to the means by which Moslem men keep their women in a perpetual state as second-class citizens. Wollstonecraft sees no discrepancy between her championing the rights of women and her statement that in some ways, at least, men are the superior sex: “In the government of the physical world, it is observable that the female, in all-purpose, is second-rate to the male. The male pursues, the female yields–this is the law of scenery.” From this, she concludes that “This physical superiority cannot be denied–and it is a noble prerogative.” Men take what she terms this “law of scenery” and modify it by using it as a club “to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment.” Women, she laments, react by feeling a sense of being “intoxicated by the worship which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to take a durable interest in their hearts.”

   Wollstonecraft views such a heavy-handed, if well meaning, patriarchy as significant mostly to the middle class, “because they appear to be in the most natural state.” Many women of the upper class have long since shed “the seeds of fake refinement, immorality, and vanity.” Yet, there are still far greater numbers of the feminine rich and legendary whom she sees as no less than “weak artificial beings raised above the common wants and affections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!” Her contempt for such upper class denizens is clear: “The education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless.” They possess no goal additional than to amuse themselves, the result of which is only “to afford lonely amusement.”

   Part of her ire is vented toward women as she notes with no tiny touch of sarcasm the inability or unwillingness of women to heed her advice: “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, as a replacement for of satisfying their FASCINATING graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” Wollstonecraft urges women to look within themselves to find an inner core of dignity and virtue that she is sure is only lying dormant, waiting for the right moment to appear. What women must learn is to resist the siren call of men, namely that “the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are nearly synonymous with epithets of weakness.” Persons women who fall victim to such gender ruses “will soon become objects of contempt.” Men also use “pretty feminine phrases” to “diminish our slavish dependence” merely to heighten women’s “weak elegance of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners.” All of this superficial elegance, she decries, is “second-rate to virtue.” When men play the Renaissance gallant by placing their capes over a mud puddle for delicate ladies to avoid getting bespattered, the result is a woman who has sacrificed the primary objective of being seen and treated as an equal in favor of secondary views that relegate women to second class status.

   Wollstonecraft sees a tie between gender and genre. Some modes of writing and style are typically feminine while additional more robust methods are distinctively masculine. She declares that the writing style of this book will be free of the curse of patriarchy: “I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style–I aim at being useful and sincerity will render me unaffected; for wishing rather to persuade by the force of my opinion, than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the pretentious bombast of artificial feelings, which coming from the head, never reach the heart..” Such writing must “avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels and from novels into familiar letters and conversation.” When diction that is overly florid flows from either the mouth or the pen, the result is “pretty nothings…that render the domestic pleasures insipid.”

   The education that women do receive is designed to foster the “libertine notions of beauty” at the expense of “might of body and mind.” As long as women are denied a proper education, then the only way left for them to rise in the world is through the airless institution of marriage, a process which merely continues the same dreary path of dehumanization that they have known all their lives. Wollstonecraft assumes that rational men will read her book and be sufficiently persuaded to alter their ways. Should men not heed her sage words, then women will have no choice but to use low cunning and guile to achieve what they could not by more traditional means.

   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
5. Martin Asiner says:

   August 19, 2010 at 12:03 pm

   When Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, the status of women in England was marked by a series of laws and customs that relegated them to second-class citizens. Among additional shortcomings, women were routinely denied the right to vote, to divorce evenhandedly, and to maintain property rights on a par with men. The source of the problem, she saw, lay in an inadequate education that guaranteed that women had to ally themselves to men merely for the basics of survival. After centuries of such a misaligned alliance, women had been cut-rate to whimpering, simpering clinging vines who had to use guile and beauty to maintain their current level of being. If women were agreed a proper education, Wollstonecraft foresaw a time when men would no longer feel the need to wield a patriarchal hegemony over women who could then dispense with guile and beauty as a means to achieve equality. A problem in her paradigm soon arose when it became apparent that there was a gap between her stated intent and her means toward achieving that intent.

   This gap lay in two overlapping arenas of thought. In the first arena, Wollstonecraft could not divorce herself entirely from the airless hand of a patriarchal hegemony that seemed nearly as natural to her as it did to the men who used it to justify a thorough quashing of female rights. Wollstonecraft did not judge in the equality of men and women as feminists today so relentlessly urge. She saw the sexes as different in such a fundamental way that it never occurred to her to seek to restore the lack of gender inequality by questioning this unspoken premise. Men had a physical superiority over women that simply could not be denied–only acknowledged. What remained for her was to appeal to the better side of men by persuading them that it was in their best interests to forego their well-entrenched custom of male gender supremacy first by viewing women according to Wollstonecraft’s new paradigm and second by acting on that view by discarding the outmoded habits of gallantry and paternalism that she saw as the root cause of the plight of women. Convincing men to do this would be no simple task nor would it be any simpler to persuade women to discard their tried and right means of feminine wiles that acted in concert with male gallantry to maintain the uneasy status quo. Wollstonecraft’s tract was well-intentioned but it is painful for the modern reader to learn that part of the reason for the failure of the book to achieve widespread acceptance until nearly a century later was due to her unbalanced perception of how men tell to women on levels ranging from the social to the intellectual to the physical. She could articulate with clarity and forcefulness that men were the superior gender with regard to biology, but her additional opinion assumed secondary and unexamined bases that she could only allude to lacking ever recognizing her own right limitations. Men who received a proper education, she reasoned, must inevitably renovate powers of exactness in reasoning that were concomitant with such an education. Women who were denied the same education or received an second-rate version of it could not hope to achieve a similar lofty means of intellectual prowess. Feminine reasoning thus was limited to “so they do today, what they did yesterday, merely because they did it yesterday.” It did not occur to Wollstonecraft that a rigorous sense of reasoning lay not in formalized education but rather inhered within women themselves. Further, she assumed that the knowledge that women gained from whatever source was both quantitatively and quantifiably different from that which men so effortlessly attained. Thus, the right unspoken stumbling block preventing the equalization of the genders lay more in Mary Wollstonecraft’s internalization of the inferiority of women than it did in the lack of education that she saw as the cause of that inferiority.

   The second source of her failure to connect viscerally with both genders in her age was due to the discrepancy between her stated goals and the means she used to achieve persons goals. In the Preface and the Introduction, Wollstonecraft was direct in stating that she must maintain a clear line of demarcation between the virtues of simple and unadorned English which she linked with male thinking and the extremes of figurative language and tropic expressions of elegance that she connected with feminine thinking. “Elegance,” she stated, “was second-rate to virtue.” Further, she wrote that “I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style, and sincerity will render me unaffected, for wishing rather to persuade by the force of my opinion than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods or in fabricating the pretentious bombast of artificial feelings.” Sorry to say for her logic, she proceeds to violate these very precepts of simplicity and sincerity.

   In Chapter I, she writes metaphorically: “For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes; whispers Experience.” This obvious personification does not fit in with her avowed aim of non-tropic language. Later in the same chapter, she takes Rousseau to task in a verbal explosion of heavenly descriptions: “Man has been held out as independent of his power who made him, or as a lawless planet darting from its orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of heaven, lurking in the devious flame, sufficiently punished his temerity, by introducing evil into the world.”

   What are we to make of these frequent gaps between intent and realization? Literary critics today tend to analyze her text using the double language of deconstructive thought, that is taking two pairs of opposing thoughts and separating them with a slash: natural/unnatural, free/controlled, man/woman etc. Unless we today assume that Mary Wollstonecraft could presciently assume the discovery of a mode of thought not dreamed of until the 1960s, we are left with the obvious, that she tried to level the economic playing meadow in the best way that she could. That she made what we call either blatant blunders or enduring insight is secondary to her stated goals. Women deserve a honest shake and education was the means toward that end.

   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5