Review Of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women

In her work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft explores the apparent difference between men and women. Her conclusion asserts that this difference is not a natural trait but rather the result of an unequal system of education that refines the faculties of a gentlemen, but fails to fully develop the virtues of women. She presents this argument by attacking the disorderly, fractured, and undirected education of women, comparing it to the learning soldiers acquire. In doing so she shows that some men, soldiers, do not achieve the same virtues the gentlemen more easily attain due to the more refined, directed education they receive. By displaying that a lack of education causes weakness in men she removes the importance
Gentlemen, in Wollstonecraft’s account are those men who have received learning that contain an intentional attempt to improve their character (Wollstonecraft 53). Wollstonecraft believes that this imbalance of education is due to the unordered nature of a women’s education, she writes, “Women, who generally speaking receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness of men, who from their infancy are broken into method observe” (Wollstonecraft 53). Wollstonecraft argues that unlike men who are taught to observe in great detail, women’s education renderers them not fully aware or interested in the world around them. For this reason women, “Do to-day what they did yesterday, merely because they did it yesterday” (Wollstonecraft 53). The education of women does not promote curiosity or a greater interest into the working of the world, but merely promotes repetitive behaviour without an understanding of the reasons for one’s actions. The disorderly nature of this learning causes the knowledge of women to be a, “more desultory kind than the knowledge of men” (Wollstonecraft 53). Without a plan or goal to direct their education Wollstonecraft fears that women will continue to learn in bits and pieces. In this form of education learning would remain, “in general, only a secondary thing, [Women] do not pursue any one branch with the
In her explanation into the properties of a soldier education and the negative traits it produces Wollaston craft demonstrates how both sexes, when poorly educated fail to meet their virtuous potential. Wollstonecraft discuss the flaws in a soldiers education, describing their method of learning by writing, “Soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the muddy current of conversation, and, from continually mixing with society, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the world” (Wollstonecraft 53). This ‘knowledge of the world’ is similar to the education of women. It is a disordered education that is acquired through daily observations and conversations, unlike the directed education of the gentleman. In addition to the nature of the education Wollstonecraft outlines the similarities of the daily actions and mannerism shared between soldiers and women, recounting how, “Soldiers, as well as women, practise the minor virtues with punctilious politeness” and that, “Like the fair sex, the business of their lives is gallantry. They were taught to please, and they only live to please” (Wollstonecraft 53). In this manner Wollstonecraft illustrates the common vanity that is found in the actions of both women and soldiers. By equating both the mannerisms and educations of soldiers and women Wollstonecraft shows that virtue does not come from gender, but education, “As a proof that education