The Value of Human Life – Second Consideration

The Value of Human Life – Second Consideration

• What do you consider to be the most interesting of Wollstonecraft’s criticisms of how relationships between men and women operated in her day? Are her ideas still relevant today?

In her writing on “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” Wollstonecraft has managed to highlight various issues that directly affected the relationships between men and women. Wollstonecraft threw the gauntlet to both the women of her day as well as the male readers, invoking the radical British and French political discourse that surrounded the earlier days of the French revolution in 1972. Wollstonecraft called for the revolution in female manners, and in her book, she proposed a model that is today known as liberal or equality feminism (Monroe & Julie. 146). Basing her argument on the assertion of universal human rights that was endorsed by enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Voltaire, as well as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an allegation that underpinned both the French revolution in 1789 and the American Revolution in 1776, Wollstonecraft believed that females usually have the most critical aspects similar to males such as having the same mental capacities as males, the possession of the same souls and therefore the equal human rights.

The first edition of the Vindication credited the males a physical superiority putting in mind his capacity to overpower the females with their excellent brute strength. She argued that it was a law of nature that did not appear to be suspended in favor of women but still cannot be denied since it is a noble prerogative. Six months after the second edition was published, Wollstonecraft successfully denied the implication or even the essential presence of male physical superiority. In the publication, Wollstonecraft reduces the tangible difference between females and males by stating that even the government of the physical world usually recognizes that generally, the females, when it comes to the point of strength, are inferior to the males.

Wollstonecraft then insists that the women’s virtues, which include courage, the strength of mind as well as perseverance, are if not yet in the degree of the same kind. She denies that without excepting modesty, sexual virtues do not exist and therefore erasing any of the essentialist variances between females and males. She stated that if females were to be allowed the same exercises as the males, then this would lead to a perfect body, which she argued that would erase any of the natural superiority that existed of the male body. Discussing from a proto-feminists point of view, Wollstonecraft observes that women are subject to social failure if they fail in the development of mutually beneficial relationships with the men in their lives. This, in turn, results in hindering the women from attaining their full potential.

She observes that men are allowed to make their choices, this leads to the inference that, “Man and woman were made for each other, though not to become one being; and if they do not improve women, they will deprive them.” Wollstonecraft based her campaign on the reforming of female education, insisting that girls since they are similar to boys, they should be educated by the same methods and in the same subjects as boys (Scobie & Ruth). She also advocated for a radical revision of the British law to allow a new egalitarian marriage where women would equally share in the possession and the management of all the resources within the households. This was because initially in the 1790s, women in the British lived under the right condition of being covered by the body of their husbands and therefore were not allowed to own or even distribute their property or possess care for their children.

She supported her argument with the law that a man and his wife are one person, and therefore as a single woman, a wife loses all her rights with her existence being fully absorbed by the husband. All these she argued that it was equivalent to slavery since everything that a wife owned before she got married the legal property of the husband after marriage, and the husband could use such features for his pleasure. She argued that women possess the same natural rights and souls as men and, therefore, should hold equal legal and civil rights. Wollstonecraft demanded women being paid equally for their labor and that they should gain legal and civil rights to distribute and possess property.

She also demanded women be admitted to every most prestigious profession, and they should be given the vote such that they should be allowed to have representatives instead of being governed arbitrarily, having no direct share in the deliberations of government. In defense for her perfect vision, she described into detail all the evils and errors of the society that she lived of its contemporary definition of the female gender as being the subordinate helper or helpmate of the husband attacking the views and arguments of scholars such as Rousseau and John Milton.

From this observation, it is possible to see that Wollstonecraft’s observes the relationships between men and women in her day to be more beneficial for the males as compared to their female counterparts. As a result, the women require a man by their side to achieve various fetes, which on the other hand, men could easily accomplish by themselves. As a result, she bears the opinion that the relationship between the two sees should be complementary where each partner fills in for the shortcomings of the other. The Vindication is dedicated to the illustration of the damage that is brought about by the definition of the social role and nature of women.

During Wollstonecraft’s day, the upper- and middle-class girls were taught how to become skillful in sustaining and arousing the male sexual desires to ensure that they captured husbands based on their financial welfare. This forced them to focus and be obsessed with personal appearance with fashion and beauty. Wollstonecraft states that women were trained to be sexual teases and flirts to arouse the male’s sexual desire through enabling their suitors to take liberties or innocent freedoms with their person but were never allowed to manifest or experience sexual desires themselves. The fact that women never got proper education, they were trained in the female accomplishments, which included dancing, singing, penmanship, sketching, beautiful sewing, and the smattering of foreign languages and Wollstonecraft called this as keeping women in a state of perpetual childhood. In the revolution of female manners.

Wollstonecraft insisted on the dramatic change in both genders and argued that the revolution would produce women who are sincerely Christian, modest, virtuous, and chaste, women who acted with generosity, reason, and prudence. The revolution would produce men who would like other than being trained or taught to become petty slave-masters or household tyrants over their female house-slaves or dependents. Still, instead, they would treat women with respect as well as act with sound reason, benevolence, and justice towards all. It would eradicate the want of moderation within men and produce egalitarian marriages based on respect, compatibility, and mutual affection.

Wollstonecraft’s ideas are still relevant today, given that although the changes adopted to bring equality for women as their male counterparts are in play, the rules are yet to reach the required effect. Based on the argument by Wollstonecraft today’s society seems better since today women have the rights to vote, they get same education as their male counterparts, they get equal shares in the possessing and distributing of property within their households, they are allowed to apply and are also given profession posts in the job market and are treated equally with the males. Even though the equality level expressed by Wollstonecraft in the Vindication, today’s society has not yet allowed the issue of gender equality, meaning that some of the criticism expressed by Wollstonecraft is still relevant today. It is possible to accelerate as well as come up with more suitable solutions that will facilitate the development of and shared equally among the two genders.