Vindication Of The Rights Of Women Analysis

The enlightenment movement created an entirely new system of both social and individual values. While previous generations relied upon doctrine and birth right the Enlightenment pushed for rational thought, reasoning, and observations of the natural world. People were now in charge of their governance and men were not bound by the circumstances of their birth. Perhaps the most important role of the enlightenment and its central idea was that no man should have arbitrary or absolute control over any other. The idea that all men were born capable of reason and growth was a shift in all ways of life, Wollstonecraft gives a concise description of man’s new obligations and freedoms “Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness,
They were nurtured and raised in a manner that ignored any possibility of individuality based on the idea that they did not have the ability to restrain their passions or utilize reason. One of the more poignant examples of this reasoning was the ideal of sensible nature. She points out the problem with this conclusion and the traditions that surround it, there is no real evidence to support the idea of inherently inferior women, let alone inherently unteachable women. In fact, she establishes that no at no point have women been able to attempt grow or act as rational individuals, they have always been ruled over without the ability to question their positions, and if they were born equal there were systems in place to prevent this potential from being utilized. Women were educated in subservience and reliance, thought was discouraged, and individuality was nonexistent. The main point is that if women are seen or judged as human beings who have at least some sense of virtue or the world around them then any hindrance or restrictions on learning more about the world and how to be virtuous is unfair and counterproductive. “I come round to my old argument; if woman be allowed to have an immortal soul, she must have, as the employment of life, an understanding to improve.” (chap 4 line
She speaks to the idea that education is the lynchpin of modern society and that this practice of intellectual advancement is something that has always been the original responsibility of the wife and mother, however that woman has never been taught the ways of rationality. The institution of parenting as it stood made Wollstonecraft critical of the mother’s ability to adequately raise a child to be virtuous without ever learning the nature of virtue herself. The extent to which mothers of traditional homes could raise and nurture young minds is described in chapter 10 “Woman, however, a slave in every situation to prejudice, seldom exerts enlightened maternal affection; for she either neglects her children, or spoils them by improper indulgence.’ Wollstonecraft hopes to convince the reader that an educated female populace will create and promote a more educated public, which by extension will improve the people and condition of the