A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft | Notes & Summary
The Condition
Wollstonecraft identifies that, in her times, females only care about external measures of beauty and elegance with rarely a consideration for internal virtue. They are only desired, even worshipped, as objects but not respected as humans. They are taught to please but not to develop.
The Cause
The cause is not biological. She does not think that it is a sure fact that women are biologically inferior to males. Indeed, this may be the case physically, but they were never on a level playing ground to ever know if it is the case mentally. She throws the challenge back to men. What do you have to lose, if you give women a level playing field and they still are ill developed then you have more grounds for the current situation: "experience should prove that they cannot attain the same strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude, let their virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if not clearer”.
She thinks that the cause is two fold: oppression from men and self-imposed impression. Both lead to the woman not receiving enough education or receiving poor education. She thinks the lack of education is the key.
Men want beautiful objects and alluring mistresses rather than equals. As a result they design educational standards and values for women that don’t cultivate internal virtues:
One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than wives; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.
Women themselves however, are so uneducated and mistaken by this imposed notion of female excellence, that they themselves resort to coquetry, power games, pointless commentary on other’s appearances and the sort. They are too blind to see their own oppression and too focused on winning these harmful games. Or they themselves benefit a great deal from this arrangement, best exemplified by the beautiful women who do not like the feminist agenda because they have an immense amount of power. She argues, however, the power from being admired as an object and not respected as a person is not a desirable form of power.
One mode in which this self-oppression takes place is bad education through romance novels that describes harmful and imbalanced relationships between men and women. She views acts of gallantry (opening the door for a girl) as acts of oppression because it reinforces this notion of an object that needs to be cradled and worshipped. This is ultimately a harmful ideal.
The Solution
She thinks that Rousseau’s commentary on the good life and virtue is correct. That it should be a life of reason.
She wants a female gender that is independent and focuses on the traditionally male characteristics of reason and virtue instead of beauty and mannerisms — where the goal is to be respected as a person rather than desired and worshipped as an object. This will be a point of criticism for later feminists who argue that feminine virtues such as beauty should be elevated instead of being abandoned. Although one way to read Wollstonecraft is that she takes these values as human virtues simply appropriated by men.
I am aware of an obvious inference:—from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raises females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind;—all those who view them with a philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine.
She has a love hate relationship with Rousseau. On one hand she is using his critique of natural inequality as actually resulting from social inequality and accepting his analysis for the good life, on the other she identifies people like him as one of the oppressors of the feminine gender. She believes that we should take what Rousseau had to say about reason and virtue and extend that to everyone.
In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men: I extend it to women, and confidently assert that they have been drawn out of their sphere by false refinement, and not by an endeavor to acquire masculine qualities.
The way she aims to arrive at this is twofold proper education and a set of civil rights for women such that they can be independent through an acquisition of personal property.
Ideal Marriages
Wollstonecraft’s arguments for feminism takes three forms
1. A priori/deontological: arguing from the fact that women have souls and are equal in the face of God.
2. A posteriori/consequentialist: arguing that it is actually better for men if women were better educated. Her discussions on marriage falls mostly into this latter category.
3. Immanent critique: arguing how the current position is inconsistent in that it doesn’t extend the rights it so praises.
Here are a few passages which cover the span of her view:
Women ought to endeavor to purify their hearts; but can they do so when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely dependent on their senses for employment and amusement, when no noble pursuit sets them above the little vanities of the day, or enables them to curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed over which every passing breeze has power? To gain the affections of a virtuous man, is affectation necessary?
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Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man; but, to ensure her husband's affections, must a wife, who, by the exercise of her mind and body, whilst she was discharging the duties of a daughter, wife, and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain its natural strength, and her nerves a healthy tone, is she, I say, to condescend, to use art, and feign a sickly delicacy, in order to secure her husband's affection? Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!
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In a seraglio, I grant, that all these arts are necessary; the epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apathy; but have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure, or in the languor of weariness, rather than assert their claim to pursue reasonable pleasures, and render themselves conspicuous, by practicing the virtues which dignify mankind? Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away, merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid hours, and soften the cares of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks, when the serious business of life is over.
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Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practicing various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband; and if she deserves his regard by possessing such substantial qualities, she will not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend to an unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband's passions. In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.
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Nature, or to speak with strict propriety God, has made all things right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work. I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's treatise, where he advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution; and as ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant, would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone, or the grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer.
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Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration, and the sensual emotions of fondness.
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This is, must be, the course of nature--friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love. And this constitution seems perfectly to harmonize with the system of government which prevails in the moral world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal momentary gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband, the dotard a prey to childish caprices, and fond jealousies, neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should excite confidence in his children are lavished on the overgrown child, his wife.
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In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to pursue with vigor the various employments which form the moral character, a master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love each other with passion. I mean to say, that they ought not to indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind that has never been engrossed by one object wants vigor--if it can long be so, it is weak.
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A mistaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many sexual prejudices, tend to make women more constant than men; but, for the present, I shall not touch on this branch of the subject. I will go still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother. And this would almost always be the consequence, if the female mind was more enlarged; for, it seems to be the common dispensation of Providence, that what we gain in present enjoyment should be deducted from the treasure of life, experience; and that when we are gathering the flowers of the day and revelling in pleasure, the solid fruit of toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same time. The way lies before us, we must turn to the right or left; and he who will pass life away in bounding from one pleasure to another, must not complain if he neither acquires wisdom nor respectability of character.”
She thinks that marriages should be based off of friendship. In the Aristotelian sense, it is not from the pleasure of love but from the respect of character. One important argument for this is that love is so transitory and based off of chance. But the respect for one's character lasts. Thus, when the novelty of love perishes couples are either met with indifference of friendship. Another argument is that unlike love, friendship does not diminish with obtainment. The only reason women are told to conceal their emotions and play games with their spouses is because if love is the primary driving force, that is the only way to sustain it.
She now tries to appeals to men more explicitly. She argues that the women who are dependent on men and find their only source of meaning in life by the men they are with are either tyrannical or deceitful.
Since this is their only mode of power they have known to control, they play games and try to control their male partners. Or, if they are only taught to please and the husband stops reciprocating her advances and stops being her lover, she might seek the same kind of gratification by needless daydreaming or cheating.
The woman who has only been taught to please, will soon find that her charms are oblique sun-beams, and that they cannot have much effect on her husband's heart when they are seen every day, when the summer is past and gone. Will she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more rational to expect, that she will try to please other men; and, in the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavor to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband ceases to be a lover--and the time will inevitably come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.
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I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice; such women though they would shrink from an intrigue with real abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of gallantry, that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands; or, days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by congenial souls, till the health is undermined and the spirits broken by discontent. How then can the great art of pleasing be such a necessary study? it is only useful to a mistress; the chaste wife, and serious mother, should only consider her power to please as the polish of her virtues, and the affection of her husband as one of the comforts that render her task less difficult, and her life happier. But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make herself respectable, and not rely for all her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities with herself.