Mary Wollstonecraft

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Mary Wollstonecraft
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Women the Englightenment
The men of the Enlightenment did little to
improve the status of women, so women writers
took it upon themselves to start the change for
equality.
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Historical Stand on Women and the Enlightenment

• Although they were able to gain minimum knowledge
  and make a step towards equal rights, the
  Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment
  didnt provide any particular benefits for women
  during their time.

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Reason 1 Opportunities to be Involved were a
Minimum

• Many women during the Enlightenment didnt have
  the opportunity to pursue an education in
  Sciences, and the quality of education they
  received was degraded from what it used to be.
• Why? ---- They were to believed to be ignorant,
  and not capable of understanding.
• A man by the name of Malebranche once said, All
  things of an abstracted nature are
  incomprehensible to them women, they cannot
  employ their imagination in disentangling
  compound questions (http//www.public.iastate.edu
  .)
• Malebranche is basically saying that women are
  not as intellectual as men.
• And because of this view on women, they were not
  allowed to attend classes other than those
  necessary to being a wife.

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How does this Play into Women Not Benefiting?

• We can look at Madame du Chatelet.
• She was part of an upper class family in
• Paris
• Wife of Voltaire (famous for his works
• criticizing Dogma)
• Highly intelligenthad skills in Latin,
• Italian, and many more, but her favorite was
  Mathematics.
• Since higher education was reserved for men,
• Madame du Chatelet hired professors to teach her
• everything from writing to geometry

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(Madame du Chatelet continued)

• Most impressive accomplishment translation of
  Principia, Sir Issac Newtons work
• She was able to comprehend the abstract things
  in Newtons book, something many people could
  never begin to do
• Later, when Chatelet tried to join the Royal
  Academy of Scientists, a place where science was
  discussed, she was denied.
• It was definitely not because of her lack of
  intelligence, because we know she was up there
  with all the men, it was because of one thing
  she was woman.
• Just like this, capable women were restricted
  from expressing their knowledge, and learning
  more

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Reason 2 Society just couldnt see women as
being as good as men

• Women were seen as nothing more that housewives.
• They were supposed to clean, cook, and take care
  of their families.
• Some even saw them only as child-bearers
• Since we are talking about the Scientific
  Revolution, you might think that this
  intellectual revolution would change the views of
  men.
• Instead, they used the new science discoveries to
  prove women were inferior.
• But, how? One theory uses the anatomy of males
  and females to prove male dominance

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Reason 2 Society just couldnt see women as
being as good as men (continued)

• Overall, men were just out to say that women were
  subordinate to them. They were just there to take
  part in the domestic areas.
• An interesting quote----
• A man said this regarding the excellent works of
  a woman academic
• The writings are so good, you would hardly
  believe they were dont by a women at all
• This just shows, men did not want to believe that
  some woman could be as smart as them.

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Women During the Enlightenment

• Educated women were still the exception, not the
  rule.
• Women in France and England did participate
  actively in revolutionary groups.
• Rousseau remained conventional on this issue,
  stating that women should be subservient to men.

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Rousseau---Anti-Womens Rights

• This typical view of women being inferior was
• greatly expressed in the works of Rousseau.
• Rousseau was born in Geneva his lifetime took
• place after Louis XIV---he was involved in the
  French Revolution
• Wrote several books on education, government, and
  women including Emile ou de l education, and Du
  Contrat social
• The Emile ou de leductaion argued that the
  social roles of women and men should be different
• Main Fact about Rousseau HE WAS ANTI-WOMENS
  RIGHTS!

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• Rousseau On the Education and Duties of Women
• "The education of women should always be relative
  to that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to
  make us love and esteem them, to educate us when
  young, to take care of us when grown up, to
  advise, to console us, to render our lives easy
  and agreeable these are the duties of women at
  all times, and what they should be taught in
  their infancy."
•   SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?

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Heres a Run Down of Rousseaus ANTI-WOMAN
thoughts

• A woman is a link between the child and father
• She is to maintain unity of the family
• Men and woman should NOT have same education
• Separate Spheres for Men and Women
• Women should for menmake their lives agreeable
  and sweet---these are the duties of women at all
  times.
• He like many other, believed women were not, and
  couldnt be anything more that simple domestic
  wives

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Early feminism (1550-1700)

• Concerns
• No recourse to law for equality for pay or
  working conditions.
• Married women had no legal independence
• ( including no legal rights over children )
• Economic access marriage
• Woman as inferior race
• Judeo-Christian negative associations/interpre
  tations as woman as temptation, secondary - from
  the rib of Adam
• Improvements (upper class women only)
• Conditions for education
• Womens argument against inferiority leads to
  questions about culture and nature.
• Small networking community established of British
  women writers

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The cult of true womanhood portrayed the ideal
woman as pious, pure, domestic, and submissive.
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Women Writers

• Began to demand equal rights Mary
  WollstonecraftA Vindication of the Rights of
  Women.
• In early 1800s, there were many women novelists
  Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson,
  Margaret Fuller, Germaine Necker, George Sand.

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Women like Mary Wollstonecraft pointed to the
unequal relationship as being contradictory to
the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Discussed womens education, participation in
government, and over all rights.
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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), founder of
modern feminism
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Women and the Enlightenment
Views on Womens Education Change Many
Enlightenment thinkers take traditional views
of womens role Prominent writer Mary
Wollstonecraft urges greater rights for women
- argues women need quality education to be
virtuous and useful - urges women to go into
traditionally male professions like
politics Some wealthy women use their status to
spread Enlightenment ideas
NEXT
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Place of Woman in the World

• For Wollstonecraft, building on Rousseau, the
  problem is not in nature but in the artificial
  relations we create -- or more accurately -- men
  create and women endure.

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With Views like that, Someone is going to get
argue

• Rousseaus fellow debater was
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Born in London, England
• She was a school head master
• -thats where she began to realize the
• subordination of women in terms of
• education
• Writer of Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,
  and History and Moral View of the Origins and
  Progress of the French Revolution
• In 1792, she published A Vindication of the
  Rights of Woman, a text of hers that received the
  most attention

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• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Enlightenment thinkers still held traditional
  views about women
• Proper roles wives, mothers should receive
  limited education
• Wollstonecraft demanded equal rights for women
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, equal
  education for women

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Woman in the World

• It would be an endless task to trace the variety
  of meanness, cares, and sorrows, into which women
  are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they
  were created rather to feel than reason, and that
  all the power they obtain must be obtained by
  their charms and weakness...

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Woman in the World

• In other words, prevailing opinion or the ways
  in which we choose to organize our social
  relations dictates the treatment of women -- and
  the way in which women see themselves in the
  society.

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• From Mary Wollstonecrafts book A Vindication of
  the Rights of Woman (1792)
• If women be educated for dependence that is, to
  act according to the will of another fallible
  being, and submit, right or wrong, to power,
  where are we to stop?
• The divine right of husbands, like the divine
  right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this
  enlightened age, be contested without danger.
• I do not wish (women) to have power over men,
  but over themselves.

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• Historian Henry Noel Brailsford, in Shelley,
  Godwin, and Their Circle (1913), considered the
  Rights of Woman
• "perhaps the most original book of its century."
• "What was absolutely new in the world's history
  was that for the first time a woman dared to sit
  down to write a book which was not an echo of
  men's thinking, nor an attempt to do rather well
  what some man had done a little better, but a
  first exploration of the problems of society and
  morals from a standpoint which recognized
  humanity without ignoring sex."

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Birth of Feminism

• The intellectual roots of feminism start in the
  Enlightenment.
• Mary Wollstonecraft the mother of modern
  feminism.
• Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• What were her two main arguments that
  enlightenment ideals supported equal rights for
  women?

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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

• Wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women
• Argued for the rights of women
• Opposed traditional restrictions on women
• Believed that women should contribute to society
  and argued for their education

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Mary Wollstonecraft

• Was the daughter of a handkerchief weaver, and
  was born in iLondon in 1759
• In 1784 she opened a school in Newington Green,
  where she made friends with Richard Price, a
  minister at the local chapel, where she also
  because close with Prices friend, Joseph
  Priestly
• Price had written the book Review of the
  Principal Questions of Morals where he argued
  that individual conscience and reason should be
  used in making moral choices also rejected
  concept of original sin and eternal punishment
  (was, at times, accused of being an atheist OH NO
  AN ATHEIST!)
• Mary was greatly influenced by Price, and this
  was made apparent by her 1786 book, Thoughts on
  the Education of Girls, where she attacked
  traditional teaching methods and suggested new
  topics that should be studied by girls

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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

• Is like the rebuttle to Rousseaus Separate
  Spheres for Men and Women
• Focused on importance of equal status of both
  men, and women
• And that education was the key for a womans
  success
• Mary Wollstonecraft was an extreme feminist who
  helped women make a step towards gaining equal
  right in the 20th century.

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Women and the Enlightenment

• Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights
  of Women

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Vindication of the Rights of Women

• Is considered Wollstonecrafts most important
  book
• In it, she attacked the education restrictions
  that kept women in a state of ignorance and
  slavish dependence, "and was especially critical
  of a society that encouraged women to be docile
  and attentive to their looks to the exclusion of
  all else
• She called marriage legal prostitution and
  added that women may be convenient slaves, but
  slavery will have its constant effect, degrading
  the master and the abject dependent.
• Her book caused much controversy, with passionate
  people on both sides of the argument many a
  vituperative comment was made. She had even
  shocked other radicals, who had declared that
  education for women would have been pointless
• Mary had to flee to France, but there died in
  childbirth after marriage. Her daughter was Mary
  Shelby the author of the famous Frankenstein

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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Civilized women are, therefore, so weakened by
false refinement, that, respecting morals, their
condition is much below what it would be were
they left in a state nearer to nature To remain,
it may be said, innocent they mean in a state of
childhood Fragile in every sense of the word,
they are obliged to look up to man for every
comfort if fear in girls, instead of being
cherished, perhaps, created, were treated in the
same manner as cowardice in boys, we should
quickly see women with more dignified aspects I
do not wish them to have power over men but over
themselves
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A Vindication of the Rights of Women

• Excerpt from A Vindication of the Rights of
  Women It is vain to expect virtue from women
  till they are in some degree independent of men
  nay, it is vain to expect that strength of
  natural affection which would make them good
  wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely
  dependent upon their husbands they will be
  cunning, mean, and selfish. The preposterous
  distinction of rank, which render civilization a
  curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous
  tyrants and cunning envious dependents, corrupt,
  almost equally, every class of people.

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Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Margaret
Fuller believed that giving women an equal
education to that of men would do more to improve
womens position in society than voting rights.
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Mary Astell 1666 1731AD

• A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
• Better education and equality in marriage
• Mary Astell is one of the earliest women
  philosophers of the early modern period not born
  into the class of nobility or wealth that allowed
  women to expand their intellectual horizons.
• She is hailed today as one of the first feminists
  chiefly because of her outspoken beliefs
  concerning the education of women and her
  thoughts concerning marriage

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Mary Astell

• Women's lack of choice in marriage especially
  irritates Astell.  Men who flatter them with
  praise while seeking their favor make them
  foolish (cf. Astrophil). 
• Women who can't find a husband are thought
  incompetent and no man can imagine himself not
  worthy of being any woman's suitor.  
• Learned women are mocked by the world at large,
  whereas men not uncommonly waste their time in
  pursuit of their lusts. 
• Women who sacrifice themselves to submission to
  a man are heroic in their self-control and in
  their service to God and mankind, but if they
  thought about it more carefully, they probably
  would not do it.  Hence, the number of women who
  marry in haste.

• Happy marriages are few, she asserts, because the
  way the institution operates in her England,
  money (income) is the primary qualification for
  most of them, with no thought for emotional
  compatibility, and poverty resulting from a "love
  match" renders the other sort miserable. 
• Men who marry for love are irregular, by
  definition, especially if they admire their
  spouses for wit, a term she criticizes as having
  fallen into being "bitter and ill-natured
  raillery" (2282) rather than "true wit," "such a
  sprightliness of imagination, such a reach and
  turn of thought, so properly expressed, as
  strikes and pleases a judicious taste" (2282). 
• She dismisses intense passion as unstable and no
  good grounds for a long-term relationship

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Women and the Enlightenment

• Changing views
• Role of education
• Equality

Mary Wollstonecraft
Olympe de Gouges
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Olympe de Gouges

• Was born in 1748 in Montauban near Toulouse in
  France as Marie Gouze.
• Little attention was given to her education
  therefore, she could hardly read or write, and
  only spoke French poorly and later dictated all
  of her work to a secretary.
• Moved to pre-revolutionary Paris and changed her
  name to blend in more with the people of the
  city.
• Lived under the support of her lover and
  underwent criticism for this to achieve her dream
  of becoming a writer.
• Attempted to live in Paris as a theater author
  but she did not succeed.
• Once wrote, Why this unswerving prejudice
  against my sex? Will it ever be allowed for
  women to escape from the terror of poverty other
  than by base means.
• In 1789, began to write politically after the
  beginning of revolutionary events.
• (cont)

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Olympe de Gouges

• Printed her social-political ideas onto posters
  with her own money and hung them around Paris.
• Wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and
  Women Citizens not soon after.
• Wrote The Three Urns or the Welfare of the
  Fatherland and was arrested for the opinions
  expressed in the paper, for which she was
  eventually arrested, for she had been a major
  supporter of the Girondists, she had suggested a
  referendum on three possible forms of government
• She had also publicly defended the king in
  December 1782, mostly for humanitarian reasons
  she wanted to achieve a reformation of society
  through words, through her writing and her
  continual appeals for nonviolence
• She thus remained a true representative of the
  Enlightenment despite her differences with
  Rousseau
• She was beheaded on November 3, 1793 after an
  unfair trial not only for her being a member of
  the Girondists but because she supported womens
  rights, for two weeks after her death, her body
  was held up in front of the crowd to show what
  would happen to those who supported women

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Aims of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman

• Education for women
• Equal opportunities for women
• In employment
• A claim to land
• Equality for women in the eyes of the law
• Women must receive equal punishments

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Aims, Continued

• A social contract between men and women in
  marriage
• All wealth is shared
• In the case of separation all property divided
• Women and men equal in a marriage
• Womens suffrage
• A national assembly of women
• Equal rights for women
• Natural rights
• Freedom of speech

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From De Gouges Declaration of the Rights of
Woman and the Female Citizen

• Woman, wake up discover your rights.
• Oh, women, women! When will you cease to be
  blind?
• Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is
  in your power to free yourselves you have only
  to want to
• I offer a foolproof way to elevate the soul of
  women it is to join them to all the activities
  of man
• Man Tell me, what gives you sovereign empire to
  oppress my sex?

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Olympe de Gouges

• Excerpt from Declaration of the Rights of Woman
  and the Female Citizen
• ignorance, omission, and scorn for the rights
  of women are only causes of public misfortune and
  of the corruption of governments, the women
  have resolved to set forth in a solemn
  declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred
  rights of woman in order that this declaration,
  constantly exposed before all the members of this
  society, will ceaselessly remind them of their
  rights and duties in order that the
  authoritative acts of women and authoritative
  acts of men may be at any moment compared with
  and respectful of the purpose of all political
  institutions and in order that the citizens
  demands, henceforth based on simple and
  incontestable principles, will always support the
  constitution, good morals, and the happiness of
  all.

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A Quick Sum Up of why Women did not Benefit

• 1 Lack of Opportunities
• 2 Views of Society
• 3 Especially the views of men Remember Rosseau,
  the ANTI-FEMINIST guy.
• Along with educational setbacks, women still did
  not have many political rights during this time
  such as property owning, or voting like the men.