Mary Wollstonecraft

Commentaire MaryWollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft marked the English literature with her work a Vindication of the Rights of Women which was published in 1792. The ideas that she exposed in this essay were tremendously new in the century and it rose many debates and many replies from fellow author. Women through decades had been the subject of many controversies, by institutions, by religion, by science and medicine, by education men always found ways to keep women statute low in the society which was build around men. One the things that Mary Wollstonecraft describes in her essay is the child like statute and the like of education, academic skills that prevented women from being independent from men. The key that would lead women to freedom from this patriarchal society is intelligence, and this idea that sheadvocatedthroughoutVindicationoftheRightsofWomen. In this extract she opposes two different point of views the general opinion supported by men and her’s. To what extent does this extract depicts what women areexpectedtobebymenandbytheauthor? First, the study of this text will be about what men want women to be and in a secondparthowitshouldbeaccordingtoWollstonecraft.

In this extract, the author goes always from the general point of view to her’s and keep on bringing first what women standard should be and they can gain powerandstrength. First,she looksoutin theworld in general andstatesthat: “it is observable thatthe female, in general, is inferior to the male. The male pursues, the female yields — this is the law of nature”. Nature made men stronger than women physically speaking, states the author and thanks to that strength male establish their superiorityinanimalkingdomaswellinmankind. Women are lured by men to give in their sentiments and be seen as mere objects “that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste”. Moreover they are perceived as mere “alluring object” by men, to which MaryWollstonecraftdepictsas On top of considering women as only objects of their desire and who only seeks to please men; they also seek to keep women dependent and lowering or maintaining a low statute for women “men endeavour to sink us still lower”. Those intents are observed in two ways, the first one is to keep the childlike statute during their whole life and the only to rise in society is by marriage. Their goal according to Wollstonecraft is keep the dependence on men. For centuries, men had always found ways to keep women from independence, men would justify women position’s by religion, saying that they were created from Adam’s rib therefore showing their inferiority. By Science, men most discussed subject was women, those studies would

show how women lack of strength, of reason and how their nervous system was much more sensible than men’s. By institutions in general, establishing in the law women to keep them “in a state of perpetual childhood” which justifies their absences in high institutions such as the Parliament, the cabinet the constituencies. Men always seeks to maintain or lower if possible women. The other way is by reducing women to mere animals: “ they are still reckoned a frivolous sex”. They are given up to “ libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves”.Marriageisgoodtooltokeepthatpositionlow.

Mary Wollstonecraft exposes how women can be happy and rise

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