Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft: Her Story

Mary Wollstonecraft grew up in a family with an abusive father. She started a school; she was well educated. She was considered to be a radical for women's rights.
Originally, she published "Vindication of the Rights of Men" anonymously. She said that it is irrational to distinguish between the classes of men. Later, she rights "Vindication of the Rights of Woman."
-->What does THE WOMAN indicate? Individualism? She is isolating THE WOMAN as a class of persons who have been treated the same throughout time.
Think, in relation of "men," she is referring to all humans. "Man" is the most normal of all human beings.
-->Man= the average human. Men are better, is the hint. Saying "mankind" is not correct anymore. Too many people have been offended. Men is meaning all people.
-Woman being used as a class, a category...

Vindication of the Rights of Women
-She is equally as hard on women as she is on men. NO MERCY!
-Society, as a system, through education trains women not to be virtuous, rational, and "manly." Society rewards women's immorality and irrational.
-Women have been degraded by female weakness. Women
-Women have been "believing" in this system, so they have been trying to find other ways to get power by "tyrannizing" the system.
-She believes in a meritocracy: one should rise due to their merits and goodness
-What about subordination? The idea that some are above others in society.
-->Subordination induced immorality! When people are trying to be better "graded," they are more likely to be immoral and do whatever is needed to be less subordinate.
-Mary Wollstonecraft wants everyone to be thinking for themselves and not worrying about others! Do what is best for yourself

Chapter 2

-Women are degraded by these morals because of the societal aim of making them more sensual to men.
-Women in comparison of soldiers: manners before morals.
-->Soldiers are "educated in the same way as women." If you educate men to behave in the same way as women, they will behave in the same way.
-Soliders= women. Women are not naturally inferior! They are NURTURED to be inferior. They are educated the same way as women.

-In terms of Rousseau, he spoke to the equality of MAN. Not women... needless to say, Wollstonecraft is not a fan of his.

Chapter 3

-Why do men adore women?
-Liberate women, and they will have less power... [I don't understand this...]
-Proving to men that women have a "puny appetite" because that is appealing to men, perhaps
-Women have more power playing on the weakness of men
-->Women who have "slept their way to the top." Become so alluring and attractive that men will elevate you to an ideal and thus worship you. That way, women will get what they want.
BUT THIS IS WRONG, according to Wollstonecraft.
-Restoring women as a humanity

-Women have been given too much. It is now time for women to work.
-Wollstonecraft proposes that women need to work harder to get what they want, rather than being given everything they wish to have.
-Both men and women need to reform.
-Wollstonecraft believed in virtue.
-->Allusion to her love life...not "married" to the man, but had his child, said she loved him, etc. He did not feel the same way.
-Wollestonecraft is very self-sufficient.
-She believed in absolute chastity, but your word should always hold true.
-->She was very consistent on her beliefs! VIRTUE IS NUMERO UNO!
-Virtue: honesty and transparency
-Her opinions on absolute republicanism
-Anna Barbowe allusion.
-->Butterflies?! No way, Jose!
-Every individual is a world in herself! People should act according to their individuality and their own opinions.