In this series of tales a hermit woman reveals to two passionate men, the question of “Why did this woman live the way she did?” is raised. Who or what caused her to live this sensual life? Was it the outside factors, or herself?
In the “Life of a Sensuous Woman”, the old female hermit says “I followed my desires wherever they went – and I ruined myself. The water will never be clear again. There’s no use regretting it now though (p.596 top).” This realization seems to have come later when this woman has attained a certain epiphany. This water that has been infested with the desires of sensuality seemed to have been awakened by an instance when she was the age of thirteen. The hermit woman says “Whenever I saw women and men lying together, Id feel excited, and when I’d hear them in the dark, my heart pounded (p.595).” This was the spark that set the fire of sensuality into a burning desire. This culture where children are exposed to the sexual influences of society will obviously reap its fruits of disastrous lives.
While this hermit woman was in youth, she had many encounters of love. The fact that she went through many relationships shows how much Japanese culture revolved around passion and sensuality. Also looking at the time when she had an affair with the monk while remaining prisoner, there was one instance where it shows that her lifestyle is nothing unique in that Japanese time period. While the woman was trapped inside of the locked temple, she met another grave looking woman who claims she too, had been living the pledge the hermit woman was experiencing (p.602). This further proves the point of the fault society has in hand.
The reason that the hermit woman was led to this state of sexual worship is because of the society she lived in. If there had been even a stable effort to stop the societal influence of burning passion for sex, there would have been many lives with less unfortunate outcome.
(Post by Nadia Rodriguez)
In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the significance of “order” in women’s educational development to gain equality to men because without it one is simply resting on life experience and, as she states, a “negligent kind of guess-work” to form judgments and assessments that are inherently flawed because of the inadequate method of deduction used. The only education provided to women was one of acquiring traits and mannerisms that would make them suitable wives. As such, their only true value in society is provided by man, weakening their character and maintaining them in a state of subordination. For women to be able to enter the male public sphere, women must first have access to the same knowledge that men are privy to so that they may too use educated methods of logic and reason to deduce and come to informed conclusions.
In the text, Wollstonecraft is not merely stating that aristocratic privilege and patriarchal rule have similarities, but that they are intrinsically one in the same. A hierarchal system which ranks the educated male above all others, and subjugates the female.
However, the author also emphasizes that the value the rich put on artificial refinement and vanity render them helpless and undermine the “foundation of virtue” that she claims is imperative to “influence on general practice”. In other words, because the aristocratic are transfixed on frivolity they cannot have an overall worthy participation and influence on matters common to all. This notion can also be applied to womankind; who in their misfortune have been limited to an education based on such superficial notions in reference to their societal participation.