reviewing Mary Wollstonecraft’s role with regards to the advocacy for gender equality

reviewing Mary Wollstonecraft’s role with regards to the advocacy for gender equality

Introduction

Commonly referred to as the Mother of Feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft’s work is mostly concerned with the rights of the women. This can be observed in her 1791 work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which is currently regarded as the classic feminist theory and history. Mary Wollstonecraft presented various arguments basically for the rights of women to access education, given that freedom and emancipation could only be attained through education would come emancipation. This paper has, therefore, been written with the objective of reviewing Mary Wollstonecraft’s role with regards to the advocacy for gender equality.

Discussion

What Wollstonecraft Want Her Female Contemporaries to Pursue

Amongst the notable things the Mary Wollstonecraft wanted her contemporaries to pursue was education. According to Mary, education was not only the solution to emancipation but also the freedom of women, a factor that would made them equal to their male counterparts (Tomaselli, 114).  As such, in attempts to defend the right of women to education, Mary approves the description of her time that the sphere of women is mainly the home even though home is not isolated from the public life as a number of other feminists of her time did (Janes, 27). Thus, for Mary, there is no distinction between domestic life and public life as they are connected. Home proves to be vital to Mary given that it is the basis for social life and public life. The public life and the state is seen to improve and serve both the family and individual lives given the observation that while men have a number of duties within the family contexts, women also have a number of duties within the public and states contexts.

Mary additionally presents the argument for the women’s right to education given the observation that she is principally answerable for the education of younger women. Prior to 1789 and the publication of the Vindication of the Rights of Man, Mary was well-known mainly as a writer with forte on children education, and also went on to accept the role in Vindication, as the woman’s function that is distinct from that of men (Janes, 32).

Mary also asserts that the education of women is prone to fortify the marriage, and her perception of marriage inspires this assertion. According to her, stability in marriage is attained through partnership between the wife and the husband as marriage tends to be a social contract between individuals. The woman, therefore, needs to gain equivalent sense and knowledge so as to be able to sustain the partnership. Stability in marriage is also perceived to provide proper education for the children (Tomaselli, 127).

Mary further acknowledges that both men and women are sexual beings, and that, for that reason, the female fidelity and chastity, which are essential for stable marriages, call for the male fidelity and chastity too (Sapiro, 70). Thus, just like women, the men are needed to place duty in preference to the sexual pleasures. Maybe the experience that Mary had with Gilbert Imlay, who fathered her daughter, brought out her point clearly given Imlay’s inaptitude to meet this standard. The control of the size of the family, for example, not only serve individuals within the family unit but also reinforces the family, thereby serving the interests of the public by bringing up better citizens. However, the placing of duty before pleasure does not imply that feelings are inconsequential. Wollstonecraft’s ethics objectives in this regard is mainly to bring thought and feeling into harmony, an aspect that she refers to as reason.

How Wollstonecraft’s urgings benefited the women of the Enlightenment

The reason that was advocated for by Wollstonecraft was of immense significance to the women of the enlightenment. Moreover, Wollstonecraft’s celebration of nature, with regards to sympathy and feelings also enabled her to develop the bridge to the literary movements and Romantic philosophy. Through the observation of women’s absorption in the purely feeling and sensing activities like beauty and fashion, Mary observed that this denigrated the women’s reason and made them have reduced ability to sustain their part in marital relationships while also reducing their efficiency as children educators thereby making them citizens who are less dutiful (Tomaselli, 131). Such an observation can be seen as being aimed at inspiring women to take up both education and public duties as opposed to being confined in the home.

Still, Mary, through her Vindication has not only made her position perceptible with regards to gender equality but also inspires women of the enlightenment to advocate for gender equality between men and women. For instance, Mary asserts that only when men and women are equally free, and also equally dutiful with regards to the exercising of family and state responsibilities can true freedom be attained (Sapiro, 76). Still, Mary asserts that the necessary reforms for attainment of such desired equality is only quality and equal education opportunities for women, which refers to education that acknowledges the woman’s role in the education of her children to be equal to that of her husband, as well as acknowledges her as an equal partner with her spouse in the family. The quality and equal education, according to Mary, should also acknowledge the women, similar to the men, as creatures of feelings and thought, creatures of reason.

Conclusion

At present, it is quite naïve to believe that the equalization of educational opportunity for women will bring about true gender equality for women. However, the Mary’s work and advocacy resulted in the progression of the novel opened doors for the education of women, and this resulted in considerable changes with regards to the opportunities and lives of women. Thus, devoid of the advocacy for quality and equal opportunity for women, they would have been doomed to the vision of distinct and inferior sphere propagated by Rousseau. Mary’s work are pertinent today and mirrors the immense changes of the society’s value of women today.