Mary Wollstonecraft The men of the Enlightenment did

Mary Wollstonecraft

The men of the Enlightenment did little to improve the status of women, so women writers took it upon themselves to start the change for equality.

Historical Stand on Women and the Enlightenment • Although they were able to gain minimum knowledge and make a step towards equal rights, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment didn’t provide any particular benefits for women during their time.

Reason 1: Opportunities to be Involved were a Minimum • Many women during the Enlightenment didn’t have the opportunity to pursue an education in Sciences, and the quality of education they received was degraded from what it used to be. • Why? ---- They were to believed to be ignorant, and not capable of understanding. • A man by the name of Malebranche once said, “All things of an abstracted nature are incomprehensible to them [women], they cannot employ their imagination in disentangling compound questions” (http: //www. public. iastate. edu. ) • Malebranche is basically saying that women are not as intellectual as men. • And because of this view on women, they were not allowed to attend classes other than those necessary to being a wife.

How does this Play into Women Not Benefiting? � We can look at Madame du Chatelet. � She was part of an upper class family in Paris � Wife of Voltaire (famous for his works criticizing Dogma) � Highly intelligent—had skills in Latin, Italian, and many more, but her favorite was Mathematics. � Since higher education was reserved for men, � Madame du Chatelet hired professors to teach her everything from writing to geometry

(Madame du Chatelet… …continued) • Most impressive accomplishment: translation of Principia, Sir Issac Newton’s work • She was able to comprehend the abstract things in Newton’s book, something many people could never begin to do • Later, when Chatelet tried to join the Royal Academy of Scientists, a place where science was discussed, she was denied. • It was definitely not because of her lack of intelligence, because we know she was up there with all the men, it was because of one thing: she was woman. • Just like this, capable women were restricted from expressing their knowledge, and learning more

Reason 2: Society just couldn’t see women as being as good as men • Women were seen as nothing more that housewives. • They were supposed to clean, cook, and take care of their families. • Some even saw them only as “child-bearers” • Since we are talking about the Scientific Revolution, you might think that this intellectual revolution would change the views of men. • Instead, they used the new science discoveries to prove women were inferior. • But, how? One theory uses the anatomy of males and females to prove male dominance

Reason 2: Society just couldn’t see women as being as good as men (continued) � Overall, men were just out to say that women were subordinate to them. They were just there to take part in the domestic areas. � An interesting quote---A man said this regarding the excellent works of a woman academic: *“The writings are so good, you would hardly believe they were don’t by a women at all” � This just shows, men did not want to believe that some woman could be as smart as them.

Women During the Enlightenment • Educated women were still the exception, not the rule. • Women in France and England did participate actively in revolutionary groups. • Rousseau remained conventional on this issue, stating that women should be subservient to men.

Rousseau---Anti. Women’s Rights • This “typical” view of women being inferior was • greatly expressed in the works of Rousseau. • Rousseau was born in Geneva; his lifetime took • place after Louis XIV---he was involved in the French Revolution • Wrote several books on education, government, and women including Emile ou de l’ education, and Du Contrat social • *The Emile ou de l’eductaion: argued that the social roles of women and men should be different • *Main Fact about Rousseau: HE WAS ANTIWOMEN’S RIGHTS!

• Rousseau On the Education and Duties of Women: • "The education of women should always be relative to that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy. " • SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?

Here’s a Run Down of Rousseau’s ANTI-WOMAN thoughts: • • • A woman is a link between the child and father She is to maintain unity of the family Men and woman should NOT have same education Separate Sphere’s for Men and Women should for men…”make their lives agreeable and sweet---these are the duties of women at all times. ” • He like many other, believed women were not, and couldn’t be anything more that simple domestic wives

Early feminism (1550 -1700) Concerns: No recourse to law for equality for pay or working conditions. Married women had no legal independence ( including no legal rights over children ) Economic access = marriage Woman as ‘inferior race’ { Judeo-Christian negative associations/interpretations as woman as temptation, secondary - from the rib of Adam} Improvements: (upper class women only) • Conditions for education • Womens argument against inferiority leads to questions about culture and nature. • Small networking community established of British women writers

The “cult of true womanhood” portrayed the ideal woman as “pious, pure, domestic, and submissive. ”

Women Writers • Began to demand equal rights: Mary Wollstonecraft—A Vindication of the Rights of Women. • In early 1800 s, there were many women novelists: Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Margaret Fuller, Germaine Necker, George Sand.

Women like Mary Wollstonecraft pointed to the unequal relationship as being contradictory to the ideas of the Enlightenment. Discussed women’s education, participation in government, and over all rights.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 -1797), founder of modern feminism

SECTION 2 Women and the Enlightenment Views on Women’s Education Change • Many Enlightenment thinkers take traditional views of women’s role • Prominent writer Mary Wollstonecraft urges greater rights for women: - argues women need quality education to be virtuous and useful - urges women to go into traditionally male professions like politics • Some wealthy women use their status to spread Enlightenment ideas NEXT

Place of Woman in the World • For Wollstonecraft, building on Rousseau, the problem is not in nature but in the artificial relations we create -- or more accurately -- men create and women endure.

With Views like that, Someone is going to get argue… � Rousseau’s fellow “debater” was Mary Wollstonecraft � Born in London, England � She was a school head master � -that’s where she began to realize the � subordination of women in terms of education � Writer of Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and History and Moral View of the Origins and Progress of the French Revolution � In 1792, she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a text of hers that received the most

Mary Wollstonecraft • Enlightenment thinkers still held traditional views about women • Proper roles wives, mothers; should receive limited education • Wollstonecraft demanded equal rights for women • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, equal education for women

Woman in the World • “It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meanness, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weakness. . . ”

Woman in the World • In other words, “prevailing opinion” or the ways in which we choose to organize our social relations dictates the treatment of women -- and the way in which women see themselves in the society.

From Mary Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): • “If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? ” • “The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger. ” • “I do not wish (women) to have power over men, but over themselves. ”

Historian Henry Noel Brailsford, in Shelley, Godwin, and Their Circle (1913), considered the Rights of Woman • "perhaps the most original book of its century. " • "What was absolutely new in the world's history was that for the first time a woman dared to sit down to write a book which was not an echo of men's thinking, nor an attempt to do rather well what some man had done a little better, but a first exploration of the problems of society and morals from a standpoint which recognized humanity without ignoring sex. "

Birth of Feminism • The intellectual roots of feminism start in the Enlightenment. • Mary Wollstonecraft: the mother of modern feminism. • Vindication of the Rights of Woman: – What were her two main arguments that enlightenment ideals supported equal rights for women?

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 -1797) • Wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women • Argued for the rights of women • Opposed traditional restrictions on women • Believed that women should contribute to society and argued for their education

Mary Wollstonecraft • • Was the daughter of a handkerchief weaver, and was born in i. London in 1759 In 1784 she opened a school in Newington Green, where she made friends with Richard Price, a minister at the local chapel, where she also because close with Price’s friend, Joseph Priestly Price had written the book Review of the Principal Questions of Morals where he argued that individual conscience and reason should be used in making moral choices – also rejected concept of original sin and eternal punishment (was, at times, accused of being an atheist OH NO AN ATHEIST!) Mary was greatly influenced by Price, and this was made apparent by her 1786 book, Thoughts on the Education of Girls, where she attacked traditional teaching methods and suggested new topics that should be studied by girls

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Is like the “rebuttle” to Rousseau’s Separate Sphere’s for Men and Women • Focused on importance of equal status of both men, and women • And that education was the key for a woman’s success • *Mary Wollstonecraft was an extreme feminist who helped women make a step towards gaining equal right in the 20 th century.

Women and the Enlightenment Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Vindication of the Rights of Women • • • Is considered Wollstonecraft’s most important book In it, she attacked the education restrictions that kept women in a state of “ignorance and slavish dependence, "and was especially critical of a society that encouraged women to be “docile and attentive to their looks to the exclusion of all else” She called marriage “legal prostitution” and added that women “may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent. ” Her book caused much controversy, with passionate people on both sides of the argument – many a vituperative comment was made. She had even shocked other radicals, who had declared that education for women would have been pointless Mary had to flee to France, but there died in childbirth after marriage. Her daughter was Mary Shelby – the author of the famous Frankenstein

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman “…Civilized women are, therefore, so weakened by false refinement, that, respecting morals, their condition is much below what it would be were they left in a state nearer to nature… To remain, it may be said, innocent; they mean in a state of childhood… Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to man for every comfort… if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps, created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we should quickly see women with more dignified aspects… I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves…”

A Vindication of the Rights of Women • Excerpt from A Vindication of the Rights of Women: “It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection which would make them good wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent upon their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish. The preposterous distinction of rank, which render civilization a curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants and cunning envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of people. ”

Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Margaret Fuller believed that giving women an equal education to that of men would do more to improve women’s position in society than voting rights.

Mary Astell: 1666 – 1731 AD • A Serious Proposal to the Ladies – Better education and equality in marriage – Mary Astell is one of the earliest women philosophers of the early modern period not born into the class of nobility or wealth that allowed women to expand their intellectual horizons. – She is hailed today as one of the first feminists chiefly because of her outspoken beliefs concerning the education of women and her thoughts concerning marriage

Mary Astell • • • Happy marriages are few, she asserts, because the way the institution operates in her England, money (income) is the primary qualification for most of them, with no thought for emotional compatibility, and poverty resulting from a "love match" renders the other sort miserable. Men who marry for love are irregular, by definition, especially if they admire their spouses for wit, a term she criticizes as having fallen into being "bitter and ill-natured raillery" (2282) rather than "true wit, " "such a sprightliness of imagination, such a reach and turn of thought, so properly expressed, as strikes and pleases a judicious taste" (2282). She dismisses intense passion as unstable and no good grounds for a long-term relationship • • Women's lack of choice in marriage especially irritates Astell. Men who flatter them with praise while seeking their favor make them foolish (cf. Astrophil). Women who can't find a husband are thought incompetent and no man can imagine himself not worthy of being any woman's suitor. Learned women are mocked by the world at large, whereas men not uncommonly waste their time in pursuit of their lusts. Women who sacrifice themselves to submission to a man are heroic in their self-control and in their service to God and mankind, but if they thought about it more carefully, they probably would not do it. Hence, the number of women who marry in haste.

Women and the Enlightenment • Changing views • Role of education • Equality Mary Wollstonecraft Olympe de Gouges

Olympe de Gouges • • Was born in 1748 in Montauban near Toulouse in France as Marie Gouze. Little attention was given to her education; therefore, she could hardly read or write, and only spoke French poorly and later dictated all of her work to a secretary. Moved to pre-revolutionary Paris and changed her name to blend in more with the people of the city. Lived under the support of her lover and underwent criticism for this to achieve her dream of becoming a writer. Attempted to live in Paris as a theater author but she did not succeed. Once wrote, “Why this unswerving prejudice against my sex? …Will it ever be allowed for women to escape from the terror of poverty other than by base means. ” In 1789, began to write politically after the beginning of revolutionary events. (cont…)

Olympe de Gouges • • • Printed her social-political ideas onto posters with her own money and hung them around Paris. Wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Women Citizens not soon after. Wrote Three Urns or the Welfare of the Fatherland was arrested for the opinions expressed in the paper, for which she was eventually arrested, for she had been a major supporter of the Girondists, she had suggested a referendum on three possible forms of government She had also publicly defended the king in December 1782, mostly for humanitarian reasons – she wanted to achieve a reformation of society through words, through her writing and her continual appeals for nonviolence She thus remained a true representative of the Enlightenment despite her differences with Rousseau She was beheaded on November 3, 1793 after an unfair trial – not only for her being a member of the Girondists but because she supported women’s rights, for two weeks after her death, her body was held up in front of the crowd to show what would happen to those who supported women

Aims of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman Education for women Equal opportunities for women § In employment § A claim to land Equality for women in the eyes of the law § Women must receive equal punishments

Aims, Continued A social contract between men and women in marriage § All wealth is shared § In the case of separation all property divided § Women and men equal in a marriage Women’s suffrage A national assembly of women Equal rights for women § Natural rights § Freedom of speech

From De Gouges’ Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen Woman, wake up… discover your rights. Oh, women! When will you cease to be blind? Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to… I offer a foolproof way to elevate the soul of women; it is to join them to all the activities of man… Man… Tell me, what gives you sovereign empire to oppress my sex?

Olympe de Gouges • Excerpt from Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen: • “…ignorance, omission, and scorn for the rights of women are only causes of public misfortune and of the corruption of governments, [the women] have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman in order that this declaration, constantly exposed before all the members of this society, will ceaselessly remind them of their rights and duties; in order that the authoritative acts of women and authoritative acts of men may be at any moment compared with and respectful of the purpose of all political institutions; and in order that the citizens’ demands, henceforth based on simple and incontestable principles, will always support the constitution, good morals, and the happiness of all. ”

A Quick Sum Up of why Women did not Benefit: • #1 Lack of Opportunities • #2 Views of Society • #3 Especially the views of men: Remember Rosseau, the ANTIFEMINIST guy. • Along with educational setbacks, women still did not have many political rights during this time such as property owning, or voting like the men.