A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Derya

A VINDICATION
of the
RIGHTS of WOMAN

Mary Wollstonecraft

The Concept of Woman
• inferior to
men as they
are
―female(s) by
virtue of a
certain lack
of qualities‖

Mary Wollstonecraft
1759-1797

Mother
of
feminism

Outline of the Presentation

•The life story of Mary
Wollstonecraft
•The historical context of the
18th century
•The analysis of ―A
Vindication of the Rights of
Woman‖

Wollstonecraft‘s opinion
about sexuality
• “Women are sexual beings,
but so are men! Female
chastity and fidelity is
necessary for stable
marriage, but requires the
male ones, too.”

18th Century

• anachronistic
statement for
this century in
which a
complete
BLIND
OBEDIENCE
was expected
from women

Historical Context of the 18th
Century
• the American Declaration of
Independence (1776)
• The French Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen (1789)
• questioning of traditional
authority
• philosophical debates on the nature
of freedom and human rationality

THE AGE of REASON
(THE ENLIGHTENMENT)

REASON
vs.
EMOTION
women were
incapable of the
full development
of reason by
their very
nature
creatures of
emotion and
passion

ANGELS IN
THE
HOUSES
supposed
nature
‗dependency‘
and
biological
role
‗mothering‘

Biographical Background
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
• struggled with
difficulties caused
by her father
• played a
maternal role for
her sisters &
mother
• established a
school with her
sister, Eliza

• In 1786, published her first work:
Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters based on her experience
with the school.
• became the governess in the family of
Lord Kingsborough, living most of the
time in Ireland.
• Dismissed in 1787, returned to England
and took up the traditional female jobs
- needlework, governess, teaching

• became translator
and literary advisor
to Joseph Johnson,
the publisher of
radical texts.
• got acquainted with
the intellectuals of
the days such as
Thomas Paine,
William Blake,
Henry Fuseli, and
William Godwin.

• In 1790, she produced her Vindication of the
Rights of Man as a response to Edmund
Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in
France , which is a defense of constitutional
monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of
England).
• In 1792, she published her A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, an important work
which, advocating equality of the sexes, and
the main doctrines of the later women's
movement, made her both famous and
infamous in her own time.

• women, too, had a
right to develop their
faculties freely
• the laws subjecting
women to the fathers
and husbands could be
changed
• their existing defects
(and indeed their
charms) resulted of
social conditioning
could be modified.

The famous comparison

• fond of dress,
trained in
obedience, and
not expected to
think for
themselves
• education and
socialization
account for more
differences than
does gender role.

Paradox: got stuck between
reason and passion
• She fell in love with a married man,
Henry Fuseli, and horrified his wife
by suggesting that the three of them
might live together, she was attacked
most due to this unacceptable and
unorthodox lifestyle
• Then, she went to Paris met Gilbert
Imlay, and agreed to become his
common law wife (informal marriage
used as a synonym for non-marital
relationships

• She bore him a daughter, Fanny, but
then she learnt about his infidelities
and attempted suicide twice. Finally,
the relationship was Imlay was over.
• She started to live with William
Godwin .Although both of them were
opposed to marriage in principle,
they eventually married due to
Mary's pregnancy and to make the
child legitimate.

• During her marriage, she was working on
a novel Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, in
which Mary asserted that women had
strong sexual desires ,and it was degrading
and immoral to pretend otherwise. This
work alone sufficed to damn Mary in the
eyes of critics throughout the following
century. In August, a daughter Mary
(who later became Shelley's wife), was born,
and on September 10 the mother died of an
infection

• Godwin published his "Memoirs" of Wollstonecraft
and her unfinished novel, Maria: or the Wrongs
of Woman. His honesty in his memoirs of her
troubled love relationships, her suicide attempts,
her financial difficulties, all helped conservative
critics to find a target to denigrate all women's
rights.
• The result? Many readers steered away from
Mary Wollstonecraft. Few writers quoted her or
used her work in their own, at least they did not
do so publicly. Godwin's work of honesty and love,
ironically, nearly caused the intellectual loss of
Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas.

A VINDICATION of the
RIGHTS of WOMAN
• attracted
considerable hostility:
Horace Walpole, for
example, called
Wollstonecraft ―a
hyena in petticoats,‖
and for most of the
nineteenth century
the book was ignored
because of its
scandalous
reputation.

RIGHTS of WOMAN
• In the late 20th • sexuality,
century, literary • reason versus passion,
critics and • slavery,
philosophers began • the relevance of the
to take great work to contemporary
interest in struggles for rights,
Wollstonecraft's • the unflattering
treatise as one of portrayal of women,
the founding works • the status of the work
of feminism, and as a foundational
discussed author's feminist text.
attitudes toward

RIGHTS of WOMAN

•to what
extent
the text
is
feminist?

RIGHTS of WOMAN
• In 1791, two events • The 2nd was the
took place report on education
prompting given by Charles
Wollstonecraft to Maurice de
write her treatise: Talleyrand-Périgord
the new French to the French
Constitution, which National Assembly
excluded women recommending that
from all areas of girls' education
public life and should be directed to
granted citizenship more subservient
rights only to men activities
over the age of 25.

RIGHTS of WOMAN
• .... Men are destined to
live on the stage of the
world. A public education
suits them [...] The
paternal home is better
for the education of
women; they have less
need to learn to deal with
the interests of others,
than to accustom
themselves to a calm and
secluded life.

RIGHTS of WOMAN
• In her dedication, • In it, which is comprised of
Wollstonecraft states 13 chapters, Wollstonecraft
argues that
that the main idea in
• true freedom necessitates
her book is based on equality of the sexes;
the simple principle: • intellect, or reason, is
―if woman is not superior to emotion, or
prepared by passion;
education to become • persuade women to acquire
the companion of strength of mind and body
man, she will stop the • convince women that what
progress of had traditionally been
regarded as soft, ―womanly‖
knowledge and virtues are synonymous
virtue‖ with weakness.

RIGHTS of WOMAN
• Wollstonecraft
advocates
education as the
key for women to
achieve a sense of
self-respect and a
new self-image
that can enable
them to live to
their full
capabilities.

ROUSSEAU vs.
WOLLSTONECRAFT
• In his work Emile, which
described the ideal education
“ Little girls
of a young man, had always
included a chapter on the dislike
very different education of
Sophie, Emile‘s future wife. learning to
For Rousseau, men‘s and read and
women‘s natures and abilities
were not the same, and these write, but
biologically given differences they are
defined their whole role in
society, with men becoming always ready
citizens and women wives to sew”.
and mothers.

ROUSSEAU vs.
WOLLSTONECRAFT
• ―I have, probably,
had an opportunity
of observing more
girls in their
infancy than
Rousseau‖.
• this kind of
“femininity” is a
social construct
rather than being
women’s true ability.

WOLLSTONECRAFT‘S
REACTIONS
• If men‘s and • As one of
women‘s common Wollstonecraft‘s
humanity is contemporaries,
based on their Mary Astell (1666-
shared and ―God- 1761) said, ‗
given possession • If all men are
of reason‖, how born free…how is
can they be it that all women
are born slaves?‘
irrational
characters?

WOLLSTONECRAFT‘S
REACTIONS
• Because of that, • Besides the education
Wollstonecraft insisted and knowledge,
on the idea that women also needed
women must be given to have independent
knowledge and employment,
education so that they property and the
can make rational protection of the civil
choices, and these law to be able to get
rational choices are rid of the economic
necessary for the necessity that lead
betterment of the
them into the forced
society.
marriages.

WOLLSTONECRAFT‘S
REACTIONS
• She expressed how
women were ‗legally
prostituted‘ through
these forced marriages,
and explained how
men considered
‗females rather as
women than human
creatures‘ and how
they were ‗anxious to
make them alluring
mistresses than
affectionate wives and
rational mothers‘

Shortly, for Wollstonecraft, a woman
who is forced to perform traditional
female roles will do so very badly,
but if men

• would... but generously snap our
chains, and be content with
rational fellowship, instead of
slavish obedience, they would find
us more observant daughters, more
affectionate sisters, more faithful
wives, more reasonable mothers - in
a word, better citizens.

PARADOXICAL
STATEMENTS
Wollstonecraft did not
expect that education and
freedom of choice would lead
most women to reject their
traditional role, but argued
that they would enable them
to perform better. She didn‘t
accept the public/private
split ;rather she sought to
show that domestic duties,
properly performed, were a
form of rational citizenship:
that is, they were to be seen
as public responsibilities
rather than a source of
private satisfaction

The objections to these statements

The problem with this is that in a world in which
domestic duties are unpaid, the economic
dependence of a woman upon her husband
remains.
By leaving women dependent on the goodwill of
men to ‗snap their chains‘, the male monopoly of
formal political and legal power is still survived.
The predominantly domestic role Wollstonecraft
outlines for women—a role that she viewed as
meaningful—was interpreted by 20th-century
feminist literary critics (and also for the ones in
21st) as paradoxically confining them to the
private sphere.

Wollstonecraft accepts the definition of
her time that women's sphere is the home,
BUT
• she does not isolate
the home from public
life as many others
did and as many still
do. For Mary
Wollstonecraft, the
public life and
domestic life are not
separate, but
connected. Men have
duties in the family,
too, and women have
duties to the state.

Sounds good, but what are these duties?
Here comes the opinion of Rousseau again
about the women duties.
• ―Why would any free • The wife's job,
man bother to stick
around long enough to
simply put, is to
help raise the children deceive the man
and look after his wife into staying at
if he didn't have to, home by sustaining
since those are both
large demands on one's
for him the illusion
free individuality— of his freedom, by
especially to his serving his
psychological freedom, psychological and
his sense of being
wholly independent?‖ sexual needs.

So, the husband will remain a loving parent and a good
citizen, without ever sensing that his freedom is being
restricted. Emile's independence paradoxically is going to
depend upon Sophie - though he must never be aware of
that.
• If Sophie is to carry
out all that Rousseau
• What about wants her to do in
Wollstonecraft‘s maintaining Emile's
sturdy sense of
reactions to this autonomy, she has to
idea of have an educated
Rousseau? reasonable
intelligence in order
to carry out her main
task of sustaining the
family.

The major problem in Rousseau's
argument
If women are to have the more difficult role in
society,
if they have to understand men and society
sufficiently well to protect the family,
if they have to be educated for these tasks,
then , the various things Rousseau wants them
to be taught simply do not seem adequate.
Wollstonecraft concludes her ideas by saying
that
―to deal with men in the way Rousseau
demands, surely women require the chance to
learn what men learn‖.

That is, Wollstonecraft wants
true equality in education

•because only when woman
and man are equally free,
•and woman and man are
equally dutiful in exercise
of their responsibilities to
family and state,
•can there be true freedom.

an education which recognizes
her duty to educate her own
children, to be an equal
partner with her husband in
the family, and which
recognizes that woman, like
man, is a creature of both
thought and feeling: a creature
of reason.

another major problem
arises from
Wollstonecraft‘s uncritical
adoption of a concept of
reason which is bound up
with the need to subdue
passion and emotion –
qualities traditionally
associated with the female.

ROUSSEAU vs. WOLLSTONECRAFT
• Rousseau: the rule of • Wollstonecraft
reason was to be was against the
achieved by the idea that women
exclusion of the were irrational
objects of passion –
creatures,
women – from public
because reason is
life, because if
women enter public a God-given
life they not only possession and
disrupt it but they men and women
also destroy its are equal in the
domestic eyes of God.
foundations.

GOT STUCK between REASON &
PASSION: Paradox again!

She was angry with Rousseau, but she
also accepted that REASON involved
the overcoming or control of love and
passion.
Although she recognised the existence
of female sexuality, like love, must be
subordinated to reason, so that
marriage and motherhood must be
based on rational choice and duty.

FEMALE SEXUALITY & SENSIBILITY

She is against false and excessive sensibility,
particularly in women.
She argues that women who are "the prey of their
senses" cannot think rationally, because these
women - due to the pleasure of the attention of
men - actually prefer being considered as objects
rather than as rational beings.
She continues that ―women are told from their
infancy, softness of temper and outward
obedience will obtain for them the protection of
man;
and should they be beautiful, everything else is
needless, for at least twenty years of their lives.

FEELING + THOUGHT = REASON
Reason and feeling are not independent for
Wollstonecraft; rather, she believes that they should
inform each other.
The goal, for Wollstonecraft's ethics, is to bring feeling and
thought into harmony. The harmony of feeling and
thought she calls reason.
In bringing together feeling and thought, rather than
separating them and dividing one for woman and one for
man, Mary Wollstonecraft was also providing a critique
of Rousseau,
who desires to convert a woman into ―a coquettish slave
and a sweeter companion to man whenever he chooses to
relax himself‖,
because a woman who lacks reason and who is full of
passion must be subject to the ‗superior faculties of man.‘

As part of her argument and defence to
Rousseau

Wollstonecraft advocates that
women should not be overly
influenced by their feelings,
they should not be constrained
by or made slaves to their
bodies or their sexual feelings.

As part of her argument and defence to
Rousseau

IF WOMEN ARE NOT
INTERESTED IN
SEXUALITY, THEY
CANNOT BE
DOMINATED BY
MEN.

Wollstonecraft advises her readers
"calmly let passion subside into friendship"
in the ideal companionate marriage.
―youth is the season for love in both sexes;
but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment
provision should be made for the more
important years of life, when reflection
takes place of sensation.‖
The ―more important years of life‖ were
those that did not include attention based
on appearance only, but on thought,
reflection, and virtue.

As Mary Poovey explains

• “Wollstonecraft • Wollstonecraft
fears that until was so determined
women can to wipe sexuality
from her picture
transcend their of the ideal
fleshly desires woman, because if
and fleshly the lustful desires
forms, they will cannot be
be hostage to controlled how
the body.‖ women can be
free and more
rational.

To realize this dream,
women should be given the
same opportunities for
growth and education as
the great men of history
had enjoyed, because both
men and women are
rational creatures.

But one concerned writer expressed
that
her life
‗is totally inconsistent with the nature
of a rational being‘
when we consider her two illegitimate
pregnancies, attempts to commit
suicide twice (almost successfully) and
her letters to William Godwin full of
vanity and passion,
even though she argues that
rationality would stop the passion for
love.

To sum up
Wollstonecraft established the main guidelines
for the future liberal feminist movement, which
sees access, education, and the changes in the
laws necessary to achieve those the key
elements in the struggle for women's equality.
Today, it may be naïve to imagine that simply
equalizing educational opportunity will ensure
true equality for women, but the century after
Wollstonecraft was a progression of newly
opened doors for women's education, and that
education significantly changed the lives and
opportunities for women in all aspects of their
lives.

To sum up,
Without equal and quality education for women,
women would be doomed to Rousseau's vision of
a separate and always inferior sphere.
Reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
today, most readers are struck with how
relevant some parts are, yet how archaic are
others.
This reflects the enormous changes in the value
society places on women's reason today, as
contrasted to the late 18th century;
but it also reflects the many ways in which
issues of equality of rights and duties are still
with us today.

THE DEBATE BETWEEN
ROUSSEAU & WOLLSTONECRAFT

QUESTION
Should we, like Rousseau, insist that women,
because they are not like men and because they
have a special social role to play, especially in
marriage and family life, should be educated and
treated differently from men—with a special
emphasis on their lives as wives and mothers?
Like Wollstonecraft, insist that men and women
should, in all the most important social and
personal roles, think of themselves as equal?
And how does our decision on this thorny point
affect our marriage and family life? BECAUSE
Women become like men rather than developing
fully as women.

THANKS A LOT
FOR YOUR
ATTENTION :)

M. DERYA
NAZLIPINAR

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Derya

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Derya

Similar to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Derya (6)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Derya