Reviews for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

The average rating for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-08 00:00:00 Dolly Jute Wollstonecraft is not passionate; she does not offer any inspiring words or flowery language. Wollstonecraft writes with no embellishment or artistry; yet, her words are commanding and exceedingly persuasive because what she does have is cold, hard, logic. And she knows it. "My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone." She refused to appeal to the sensibilities and imaginations of her readers. Instead she wished to display her rational intellect, an intellect free of flights of fancy and one that had the ability to access the situation in all its reality. She argued that women, in their current state, had no means of proving their worth. She believed that women were physically inferior to men, but in terms of intellect they were equal and that they so desperately needed a noble, edifying, pursuit in which to show this. Wollstonecraft offers many compelling arguments in here, though for me her most logical pertains to human progress; she argues that without education it will simply stop: a very true point. Humanity needs to continue to develop, but this is impossible if only half of humanity is educated. She argues that women cannot teach their children if they in turn are not educated. How can she impart any wisdom or teach any sense of patriotism if she has not learnt to love mankind? Wollstonecraft believed that the key to overturning sexism began and ended with education. "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience." Due to the lack of education women recieved, Wollstonecraft suggests that they have been rendered wretched and weak. They are merely classified as females rather than members of mankind. She wants to see women take on manly qualities, well, traits associated with manhood. She wanted to break the oppressive gender boundaries that limited the faculty of her sex. As such, she was satirised by many novelists and critics for being manly herself. The ironic thing is that such a label only serves to achieve what she is arguing for. She wanted women to be many, to be equal to men. However, Wollstonecraft was at times very condescending towards women. Whilst she does not blame them for their predicament, that blame lays at the door of the patriarchy and men in general, she does chastise them for not trying to break through their shackles. Though what she fails to recognise is that for many women they do not have the benefit of looking beyond earning enough money to get through the week and looking after their families. Wollstonecraft is distinctively middle-class, and as such, at times, she lacks the ability to empathise with the reality of the situation some women will find themselves in. She also undervalues the lessons and teachings uneducated people can still pass on to their children, the value of hard work and honesty for example. Such minor issues with her writing by no means downplay the power and logic behind her arguments, arguments that would go on to inspire the next generation of writers (including her daughter and her daughter's husband, no doubt.) I also noticed some very particular phrasing that was later mirrored almost verbatim in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Wollstonecraft's ideas were carried further by a medium she deplored, the novel. She really underestimated its power as a learning device. Wollstonecraft is certainly a powerful literary figure to be admired, and, this, as a seminal work in the development of feminism is, certainly, a work of undying success and potency.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-09-29 00:00:00 Eugene Jarecki OH MY GOD , this uncoventional, feminist woman is mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, who was one of my favorite author only after Rowling, Wilde, Plath...etc.? SHELLEY, you never tell me how cool your mother was!!! . I thought we were best friends.