Source: Amazon. in
Introduction
Book’s Name: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Author: Mary Wollstonecraft
Genre: Fiction, Non-fiction
Language: English
Published: 1792
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a classic of rationalist feminism and human rights. Wollstonecraft wrote this book as a reaction to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution (1780).
Burke opined that the french revolution will ultimately fail because society needs to inherit position and other traditional structures. Wollstonecraft initially wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) as a rebuttal to Burke.
She went a step further and published her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. For the first time in history, a book focusing on women’s rights to be on the same footing as men’s rights was published.
Brief Summary
The book is divided into 13 chapters. Each chapter addresses important topics such as treating women with dignity and properly educating women. It also asks to provide essential training to be good wives and mothers.
Wollstonecraft in her book focuses on women’s rights and education. Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women approaches the issues of feminism through the reasons which women are subjugated and the patriarchal government. She talks about the ideal marriage and focuses on reasons to achieve equality.
She speaks as an Enlightenment advocated for the equal rights of man achieved if we conduct ourselves by reason as well as rationality. She argues that reason, the fountainhead of everything is what women need. Women as human beings need proper education to gain reason.
If men start critiquing the reason instead of “employing their reason to justify prejudices” could make us better beings. She believed reason to be “man's pre-eminence” over everything. She opines that the only way to return women to equality would be to topple the existing social order.
With her overview of European history, she regards power to corrupt weak men irrespective of their professions. Wollstonecraft in her second chapter points out the many vices that men attribute to women which she calls the “natural affect of ignorance”.
She evaluates the attributes of writers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau who stress the importance of reason and equality in political affairs, asserting women are only a toy insisting that these thoughts are bound to end in disaster.
“It is not intellectual inferiority that has made it impossible for women to write literature, it is the conditions of everyday life”.
Themes
Marriage as Friendships: Wollstonecraft imagined marriage as a friendship between the man and the woman. She wished for a husband and wife to be companions and partners, not master and slave. Equality, Freedom, Respect, Choice, and Virtue: the classical liberalism ideas are to be embodied in a marriage.
Reason and Rationality: Wollstonecraft ought women to aspire to be worthy of full citizenship. Rational women are likely to understand their duties better. A woman should have more to offer than her evanescent beauty. Her reason and education will meet her freedom from men’s shackles. In our world, women not exercising reason must be unnatural.
Reforming Education: One of Wollstonecraft's best ideas was to reform the then education system. She believed co-education will help both boys and girls to see each other as partners and equals in life. The lack of substantive education for women is the most reason for women’s ignorance, indolence, and subordination. When women study serious subjects they will become better wives and mothers.
Change in Female Manners: Wollstonecraft writes in chapter three, “ It is time to effect a revolution in female manners -time to restore to them their lost dignity - and make them, as a part of the human species, labor by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” She wanted women to attain education, have a reason, embody true modesty and virtue. Women must stop being foolish as well as useless, with beautiful objects for sexual pleasure.
My Viewpoint
Mary Wollstonecraft was a renowned women's rights activist who advocated for Women’s equality. I believe Wollstonecraft’s ideas became the backbone of feminist movements. Her argument that we need a revolution in female manners and to change our expectations of both men and women continues to be pertinent today.
We need a world where both men and women are equal in every aspect of our lives. A Vindication of the Rights of Women is a first step towards achieving educational, financial, political, and economic independence for women. Virtue can only flourish among equals and the beginning always starts from today.
Famous Quotations from the book
“My sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”
“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”
“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!”
My Rating: 4.5 on 5
Buy your copy now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/Vindication-Rights-Woman-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486290360
Written by Garima Jain
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