Clashing Views Of Wollstonecraft And Rousseau On Women And Education

J. J. Rousseau on Male and Female Identities

Rousseau is regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment era, and his works demonstrate that he was concerned with “equality among men,” but not with the equality of women. Rousseau had a significant impact on 18th-century intellectual discourse. “Man is good but has been corrupted by social institutions,” summarises his fundamental thesis.

“Nature has created man happy and good,” he continued, “but society depraves him and makes him miserable.” Women’s experiences, on the other hand, did not stimulate Rousseau’s reflection, as he regarded them as the inferior sex, resigned to be reliant on men. In his work ‘Emile’, Rousseau elaborately outlines his thoughts on the ideal man and his critique of the contemporary world. 

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His thoughts on male and female identities, as well as the type of education required to develop these identities, are expressed in this work, which is a half educational treatise and half fiction. Even though he is lauded for espousing human equality, the truth is that he didn’t consider women’s equality in his equation at all. 

Views on Women’s Education 

He posited that because women were less sensible than men, they needed to rely on men, that men desired women but did not require them to live whereas women both sought and needed men. In Emile, he discusses the differences in education that he believes women and men require. Rousseau believes that a woman’s primary role in life is to be a wife and mother and that she does not require the same level of education as males. 

In his opinion, a woman’s demure was a virtue, and it was her responsibility to bear and rear children. As a result, she did not require the same level of education as a man. Her education is required for her to raise her children. He did not advocate for the ill-treatment of girls, but he did believe that they should be trained to be submissive and to accept authority. 

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In addition to striving to please the man, the woman must respect his authority and avoid provoking his anger. The woman's allure stemmed from her willingness to submit to the man's control. Rousseau advocated a different form of learning and disciplinary procedures in the parenting of the girl child based on his ideal man-woman relationships. 

Emile’s supposed spouse and helpmate, Sophy, he believed, had the responsibility of assisting Emile in realizing his human potential and developing the attributes necessary for a good citizenry. Despite his observation that the fundamental difference between the sexes is insignificant, Rousseau advises restrictions for women’s education and still prefers to think of gender identities as physiologically determined and inherently distinct, suggesting that while men should be “strong and active”, women should be “weak and passive”. 

Rousseau’s inability to overcome the prevalent barrier of sexist thought demonstrates how deeply ingrained these views were. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft takes on educationists who attempted to restrict females’ learning chances head-on, passionately arguing for women’s education saying, 

“I may be accused of arrogance; still I must declare what I firmly believe, that all the writers who have written on the subject of female education and manners from Rousseau to Dr. Gregory have contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters, than they would otherwise have been; and, consequently, more useless members of society.” 

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Critique of Rousseau

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Wollstonecraft’s critique of Rousseau originates from her belief that women must also learn to think more critically, make wise decisions and accept moral responsibility for their actions. She maintained that a woman must be intellectual in her own right. This, according to her, did not conflict with a woman’s responsibility as a mother or caregiver, or with her role in the home, claiming “meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers”. 

The main point of her critique is against the established unequal power relationships between the sexes. The whole idea that the sexes required distinct types of education to fit into their role in society was, in her opinion, nothing more than a rationalization for male authoritarianism and to keep women subservient. 

Women become powerless as a result of such gender dynamics. She claims that women develop character traits like avarice, reliance, timidity, and physical fragility as a result of their powerlessness, which males then exploit as justifications to further strip women of their autonomy and put them in eternal slavery. 

Women’s pursuit to adapt to male conceptions of beauty, passions, and fragility rather than developing their wits is because marriage is the only opportunity available to them and their survival depends on male acceptance. Their apparent intellectual incompetence stems from their lack of formal education. They also have few social obligations and are therefore reliant on male benevolence. 

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Because of their dependence, they develop male-pleasing characteristics. The contradictions in Rousseau’s statement that women’s inherent nature included qualities like lassitude, apathy, and a lack of real purpose were pointed out by Wollstonecraft who argues that if such characteristics are in women’s nature, why not just let them develop naturally? Why go to the lengths to fortify them through education? 

She doesn’t chastise lack of protection from negative impressions when describing how the minds of adolescent girls and women are corrupted through faulty education. Rather she claims that, 

“One reason why men have superior judgment, and more fortitude than women, is undoubtedly this, that they give a freer scope to the grand passions, and by more frequently going astray enlarge their minds”. 

Wollstonecraft also criticizes Rousseau's pedagogical treatise wherein he portrays his ideal social man as modeled after ancient Spartan men. By referring to Spartan culture as “barbarian”, she raises questions on the idealization of this aggressive type of manhood. She questions whether such a man is fit for establishing sophisticated nation-states, pointing to their barbarity to slaves and their warfare. 

Summing Up 

Good education must not constrict one’s mind or make one insensitive, with all their affections dried up and this is accomplished by nurturing and strengthening both simultaneously. This is the goal that Emile’s education aims at and Wollstonecraft’s concerns against “employing the mind in investigations remote from life” are similar to Rousseau’s. 

Wollstonecraft’s purpose is simple: she wishes to extend Emile’s education to women. Many of her arguments seem eerily similar to current debates over gender equality and equal opportunity. Even though her importance as a genuine philosopher is undeniable, it's odd that while Rousseau has become a legendary philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft's contributions have gone virtually unnoticed.

Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary