Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” is, in my opinion, a fairly radical piece of literature for the era in which it was published. In it, Wollstonecraft raises valid points about the gap in the education of women and men.
As I understand it, Wollstonecraft states that women have been neglected of proper education, and that that is the difference between the capabilities of the two sexes. She writes “…the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding…in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.”
I can’t help but agree that education must be continued until one is considered self-sufficient in reasoning, and it makes sense that this is not an option that many women had in the late 1700’s. This theme is one that Kant discusses as well; in his essay “What is Enlightenment?” he states that “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.”
In the last paragraph of the text, Wollstonecraft touches on the topic of women’s obedience.
After having read it, I began to wonder: Would the human race have fared better if one half of its population was not expected to be mindlessly obedient through so many generations? Imagine, the opportunities lost; the ideas never brought to light because they were “of womankind!”
Perhaps the fact that women were forced to incubate in the male mindset for so long created a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, if a woman is constantly repressed by her male counterpart, would she not eventually assume herself to be the inferior?
It is a sad thought, indeed, that humanity’s evolution was most likely stunted by its disregard for the rights of women.
