A Vindication Of The Right's Of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft writes A Vindication Of The Right’s Of Woman in order to illustrate the oppressions women face. It is a reaction to Tom Paine’s Rights of Man. She describes how women are denied privileges that men receive, such as political and domestic privileges, which causes women to learn to fend for themselves through finding a man. Within her essay, she hopes to persuade women to fend for themselves and become creatures who rely on the knowledge and strength of their own bodies and minds instead of that of their men. In her introduction, Wollstonecraft begins to discuss how men are giving their privileges, rights, experiences, etcetera while women are denied these things. Women must flirt and become housewives in order to find security, character, and a life.  Wollstonecraft writes about multiple factors that oppress women such as women being seen as objects, women being denied the same education and experiences of men, and women expecting to only want to find a husband. In other words, women are meant to be taught to be dependent and independence is seen as ugly and a burden. In order to illustrate her point, Wollstonecraft alludes to many other works and even criticizes these works for oppressing women—feminist criticism. Some examples of these works include Hamlet, the works of Milton, Dr. John Gregory, and Rousseau. These works show what Wollstonecraft is trying to explain and refute, such as Dr. Gregory who discusses how women should be educated and Rousseau who writes about what is expected of women and how they should behave. Wollstonecraft criticizes the views of women in these works in order to express to women that they must become independent and illustrate to society that women must be given more privileges. She criticizes the views of women’s dependency illustrated through nature, history, philosophy, and other writers.

                In reaction to A Vindication Of The Right’s Of Woman, I agree with what Wollstonecraft is saying. In her time period, even sometimes in the current time period, women feel as if they need to be dependent on their looks, flattery, and flirtatious behavior in order to achieve their goals in life. In Wollstonecraft’s time that one goal in a women’s life was to find a husband to depend on. All these things were taught to females, beginning at young age. To see how much women have progressed since then but how the views have not is astonishing. I believe in today’s society women are growing more independent but the views of women being dependent have not changed. From my knowledge and experiences in today’s society I believe it is still believed that women are meant to be dependent. Though the view is not as extreme as it was in Wollstonecraft’s time, it is still evident.

                Also, it was interesting to see one of the first pieces of feminist criticism and with my base knowledge of feminist criticism today, it has changed and grown into something much more.

Sincerely,

A Girl and Her Heels