A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

http://www.housmans.com/booklists/Wollstonecraft.php 

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) a book that is widely considered to be the 'founding text of modern feminism' (Craciun, 2002, p.36).

Mary Wollstonecraft's main argument is the inferior position of Women in Society at the time and how they do not have the opportunities to fulfill their potential and shape their own lives in terms of marriage and education. Her argument is that women have a 'neglected education' and as such are 'rendered weak and wretched'. (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.1).

One of Mary Wollstonecraft's main arguments centred around education. Wollstonecraft says that women's minds 'are not in a healthy state...strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty' (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.1) she attributed this to the 'false system of education' (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.1). Wollstonecraft's explains this, by reason that, the books available for women to use to educate themselves were written primarily by men, therefore, displaying a males inferior view of women. Wollstonecraft goes on to say that if women received a better education then they could contribute to society by holding down established positions in 'the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses' (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.26). She believed women's education would benefit society as it would 'save many from common and legal prostitution' (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.28).

Marriage is also a reoccurring theme in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she states that with the presence of a valued education 'women would not then marry for support' (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.28) here she appears to suggest that women would instead marry for love and men would get a better deal in knowing their wife truly loved them when choosing to marrying them.

“...men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.” (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.3).

Here, Mary Wollstonecraft explains how marriage, at that time was conducted on beauty and women's fascination with having their men finding them attractive. Despite this they held no place in their hearts, therefore, were not loved in the true sense of marriage.

During A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft does not claim women's superiority to men. When she talks about women she says 'I do not wish them to have power over men;but over themselves'. (Wollstonecraft, 1792, p.34).Throughout the text Wollstonecraft is explaining the frustrations felt by women and asking for equality and the chance to be allowed to develop and explore their potential. Wollstonecraft argues that they are human beings, deserving of the same rights as men.

A copy of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman can be accessed via Project Gutenberg using the following link: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3420.                                        

http://www.collectgbstamps.co.uk/explore/issues/?issue=22439

Further insight into the position of women in society can be found in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper 'feminists believe this draws on the concept of the domestic sphere that women were held in during this time' (Thomas, 1997).

A copy of The Yellow Wallpaper can be accessed via Project Gutenberg using the following link - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm

http://www.kentonlibrary.org/2013/the-yellow-wallpaper-digital-book-kit-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman