Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Rationality in Wollstonecraft
Wollstonecraft argues for the vindication of rights of woman, but she scarcely seems to believe woman capable of utilizing these rights to their fullest potential. She partially casts the blame for woman's current deplorable state on patriarchal society, for objectifying women into "flowers", objects useful only for their beauty and cast aside when that fades. Wollstonecraft sees the solution to the objectification of women as education, so that they may develop rational thought, and from that, virtue, making women eternally useful and equal to men who also posses such values. Yet the conditions of society may make this sort of role (of the educated, rational woman) impossible, because of the gender constructs that proscribe for women the role of lover, mistress, mother, a thing of beauty, to serve and please and capable of no more. Wollstonecraft advocates feminism and equal rights for women, but it seems to me that she doesn't think the majority of her sex are deserving or capable of rationality, and living for a purpose higher than that of aesthetics and pleasing men.
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I also sense a sort of hesitancy by Wollestoncroft to say that all women have the ability to grasp rationality. in this way, Wollstencroft 's behavior is paralleling men's treatment to women. This leads me to ask if there is any answer to this problem? Or will one group always claim superiority of ability or intelligence? wollstencroft's harsh tone leads me to believe that the answer is no. I don't' feel that her harsh tones or her ideas will succeed among the masses.
ReplyDeleteI agree Wollstonecraft doubts many of the women in English society can fulfill the role of the rational, educated female at this point in time. However, I think she offers a remedy for this problem by placing her hope in the future generation: by beginning to educate girls at a young age, she believes the role of women in society can be altered.
ReplyDeleteShe probably in many ways believed, perhaps subconsciously, things that she had heard all of her life, especially about women being irreversibly inferior to men. Though she could probably see her own capabilities and understand that she did not fit into this definition, surely many, if not most, of the women of the day would have been so bound by cultural ideals that Wollstonecraft couldn't imagine most of them succeeding. So yeah, I agree, she didn't set the bar very high as far as expectations go, but it would have required a lot of optimism and imagination to do so.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading this post, I immediately recalled Lucy Aiken, and how she also compared women to flowers (as they so typically are) who are cast off as soon as their petals fall. "But eyes, alas! grow dim, and roses fade, And men contemns the trifler he has made." Lucy's Epistles are her attempt to also reeducate the world. In this case about women!
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