Mary Wollstonecraft was a huge misogynist.

Bless her, pretending to read.

Well, not really. But she did lay it on a bit thick.
Mary Wollenstonecraft is often referred to as the first 'real' feminist. She lived up to the label; she had numerous affairs behind her husband's back (as men were prone to do to their wives) and authored a very influential bit of prose questioning why exactly women don't hold the same status as men, and came to the conclusion that it can be all followed back to the quality of education that women are denied. From reading through "A Vindication on the Rights of Women", I saw that she was relentlessly angry and passionate about her cause. She hated everyone. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I kind of like her.



Mary was inspired by John Locke's tabula rasa - the idea that every human was a blank slate got her thinking that if men and women were given the same experiences in life, then they should be capable of achieving the same things.

Control

She believed that women are in essence controlled through a "careful education" that focuses only on the superficial or frivolous (dumb stuff like needlework, playing the piano, obsessing over appearance.) "In short, the whole tenor of female education (the education of society) is to render the best disposed romantic and inconstrant; on the remainder vain and mean."
It's basically the equivalent of only teaching girls today how to style their hair, dance and make sandwiches in lieu of mentioning anything at all in the way of maths/english/history past a primary school sort of level. A huge majority of our population today achieve at the very least their GCSEs - covering a pretty broad spectrum of subjects - which is much more education than the women of Mary's time would have received.

The issue raised by Mary of women only being taught trivial or superficial things is a bit Orwellian. She suggests that by only being taught these superficial things, that women in turn believe that they are superficial, 'silly' and utterly incapable of intellectual thought. It is a powerful form of thought control, and leads to a vicious cycle where women do not think that they are capable of anything more and so do not think to rise and "throw off the yoke" of men and society.

Context

She suggested that gender should have nothing to do with a person's perceived aptitude for any task; the assessment of their capability should rely on their skill alone and not their sex. It is only in the context of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman that gender becomes relevant and it is there that they can express that sexuality. Love was discussed at length by Mary, and admits that as creatures of "sensibility" women are much more likely to get carried away by it all, because they are a slave to their emotions. This further allows men to manipulate them, and as women are "taught to do nothing but please" have nothing to turn to apart from prostitution should they ever find themselves destitute. Bleak.

Knowledge has a higher purpose

Mary was especially critical of the denial of a equal education for women as she believed that a deep, comprehensive education is the only way to "furnish one's soul". She saw education as a chance to move closer to perfection, self-improvement of man's immortal soul. Denying women this education and seeing them simply as objects in the backdrop is to ruin this chance, as the soul would be, in Mary's mind, ill-equipped to deal with the transition to the afterlife. She did not specify the consequences for this, however. She expanded upon her point here, and said that the biggest mistake men make is treating education simply as a way to prepare for life, when really it should be all about enriching your soul and preparing for what lies beyond.

Men are prepared with education for a future profession; women, for marriage. To "marry advantageously" is one of the only real quests in a woman's life. If they manage to do so, then they will be provided for the rest of their lives - they will want for nothing, and have even less reason for self-improvement. This, Mary argued, is how women are thrown into bondage in the first place.

The Rich

She drew parallels between privileged, beautiful women and the rich- neither have to work, or do anything to earn the love and esteem of those around them as "the respect paid to wealth and beauty is the most certain and unequiovocal."
However, this love and respect is often saccharine; almost patronising; Mary used the example of 'gallantry' in men as a way of them reaffirming their dominance over women, by asserting that women cannot do things like open doors for themselves.

If you don't have to do anything to earn the love which everyone so desperately craves, then why bother? "...the common herd will always take the nearest road to the completion of their wishes."
She also mentioned that those born into royalty often have the same attitude to life as women; they will never have to strive to earn the respect and reverence of others as it is automatically given to them. "A king is always a king, a woman is always a woman."

Mary asserted that to keep women uneducated is to keep them in a state of innocence, and "To remain... they mean in a state of childhood. We might as well never have been born." She argued that living life in a perpetual state of ignorance (Ignorance, she says, is no excuse for lack of virtue) is not a life worth living.

Mary apportioned blame on both women and men, and for the society that perputates treating women as inferior to men. She was much harder on her fellow ladies though; it seemed that in her mind, they were being almost wilfully ignorant and even accepting of their lot in life.

So there's that. And here are the notes that I took along to the seminar:

Seminar Notes

Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication on the Rights of Woman", despite being a bit inaccessible and repetitive at times, ultimately raises some compelling arguments. Some I find are still relevant today.

The two main strands of her argument seem to be:

1: Women are trapped by their restrictive education

2: Their restrictive education traps them into thinking they cannot be anything more, in addition to not wanting to break away from socially constructed ideas of what it is to be feminine.

Femininity, defined by Mary throughout the chapter, is this -

Weak, "sensible" - that is, feeling in the absence of reason, fearful, loving, vain, shallow, petty, "narrow-minded" and beautiful. They don’t have the capacity to reason, or at least, that is not their place, and they are expected to take information on trust from men. They are “taught to please, and so constantly on the lookout to please.” They are childlike in their innocence, as they have not been allowed the chance to develop reason, and for this Mary argues they may as well have never been born.

She is adamant that these negative virtues are not intrinsically specific to women, merely cultivated in them as a method of control. Mary argues that fear in boys is treated as cowardice, and is scorned – but in girls it is accepted as endearing and simply a trait of their fair gender.

She quotes Rousseau – “Educate women like men, and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.”

She compares women to the rich – both are privileged in ways that they might never have to work or want for anything, and without this there is no need to be educated as education is usually absolutely necessary to improve your situation.

Mary doesn’t necessarily blame men and conventional society for their reluctance to teach women – she thinks that they just don’t understand what the primary purpose of education should be. She says they think that education is simply a way of preparing for life – preparing for a profession in a man’s case, and preparation to make a suitable wife in a woman’s.

The “error” that men are making is that they do not realise that education and the acquisition of reason is simply a way of “furnishing one’s immortal soul” and a way to “connect creature to creator.”

Mary does not specify the consequences of an ill-equipped immortal soul, but I’m guessing that it’s probably limbo or something similar.

At first I thought the whole immortal soul argument was weak – I didn’t really understand its significance as I’m not religious. But from the point of view of a Christian mother or father, the thought of damning your young daughter to an eternity of wandering the earth, when you could intervene now to stop that, is probably a strong one.

Mary is, in essence, just arguing for equality of opportunity – she accepts that men and women are biologically different but says that this should not stop both genders having an equal shot at understanding and living a virtuous life. “Without knowledge, there can be no morality.”

The only thing left to explore is why women are seen the way they are, and Mary spends the rest of the chapter “tracing the causes which have degraded women.”

She puts this down to “sovereignty of beauty”, instant gratification and the negative virtues which trap women in a vicious circle.

On beauty, Mary says that women “submit to condescend to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers different from that reciprocation of civility... and politeness between man and man.” She is saying that women, when at their peak, are more than happy to receive this fleeting adoration and attention from anyone rather than to lower themselves just for the simple respect that men give each other.

“In beauty’s empire is no mean,

And woman, either slave or queen,

Is quickly scorned when not adored

But the adoration comes first, and the scorn is not anticipated.” 

She is suggesting that women don’t have the foresight, perhaps, to imagine that when their beauty fades the attention and compliments will stop, and has been superficial all along – or maybe that with their sensibility and being so swayed by emotion, they are just too caught in the moment to think about it. Because their whole education has been to focus on themselves and their appearance, once this goes they are left with nothing. – “In short, the whole tenor of female education tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean.” It does nothing else. But if this beauty has allowed them to “marry advantageously” then they will not find themselves a victim of a lack of education.

This whole thing about beauty I find to be mostly true – It’s not often that you see an amazingly beautiful woman doing anything overly intellectual, whether she had the capacity for it or not. If she is idolized then she doesn’t need to do much to get by in life, because people will be more willing to help her, even if it is for transparent reasons. On ‘marrying advantageously,’ this still happens today – footballer’s wives. Lots of them set out with the intention of marrying a footballer and they achieve it through their beauty. If you’re pretty, you’re not going to have to work as hard as the next person to “have the liberty of running from pleasure to pleasure” just as if you’re born into a multi-millionaire family, you may not even have to work a day in your life. Paris Hilton is a good example. Seeing as education is usually the precursor for a job, then that might get taken out of the equation too. Why bother? Everybody wants to be adored, but if you’re born with that privilege then there is no point to education. "...the common herd will always take the nearest road to the completion of their wishes."

Today’s society is a secular one with diminishing belief in God, and if you don’t believe in an immortal soul, then the strongest part of Mary’s argument is void.