A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindications of the Rights of Woman” illustrates Wollstoncraft’s belief that women should be given the chance to become people ruled by rational thought, as well as the opportunity to cultivate lives filled with virtue. Wollstonecraft makes the case that at the time of writing women were resigned to instill in men a sense of fondness in the hope of gaining a comfortable life through marriage. In response to this attitude Wollstonecraft offers an alternative way of thinking that allows for a mutual respect to form between man and woman that ultimately leads to a more successful relationship between the two. Instead of women being taught to rely on their beauty and certain qualities such as blind obedience and gentility to obtain a husband, they should instead be allowed to gain respect by men by “pursue[ing] with vigour the various employments which form the moral character” (113). Wollstonecraft’s argument is that a marriage based on the initial sensation of passion that is taught to be elicited in a cunning fashion by women and that is heavily influenced by beauty cannot last without there being a friendship between the two sexes involved. This friendship can only be obtained by a shared strength of character that breeds respect between the two. But as it is Wollstencraft states that women “…have been stripped of the virtues that have clothed humanity, they have been decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived tyranny. Love, in their bosoms, takes the place of every nobler passion; their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of character” (116).  By teaching women to illicit passion and feeling in men instead of allowing them to cultivate virtues of their own choosing, society forces the loss of character in women and therefore the ability to obtain respect.