Mary Wollstonecraft Women's Rights Analysis

Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher and an advocate that fought for women’s rights, she strived for all sexes to be treated equally and believed that everyone regardless of what sex they were should receive an equal education. There were certain events that inspired Wollstonecraft to stand up for women’s rights. The first event was the writing of the French constitution that denied any rights to women and only granted citizenship to men. The other event was about education where she was inspired to write a book after the report that Charles Maurice de Talleyrand made stating that a women’s education should be focused toward submissive actions. Wollstonecraft responded to the revolutionary period where she strived to gain equal rights and political representation because those who had had

Women stay home and their roles are to take care of the children and they don’t make any income therefore this leads to them depending on men. Wollstonecraft mentions that women are taught to cultivate beauty and therefore states, “like flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and uselessness are sacrificed to beauty” (95). Thus stating that those women who lived during this century with the ability to only exclude some “are anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition and by their abilities and virtues exact respect” (96). Wollstonecraft’s views aligned with those of other Enlightenment thinkers especially Rousseau because he thought that women weren’t capable of thinking rationally. However Wollstonecraft argues that they are not able to think rationally now because they are more concentrated on beauty. Nonetheless if women were educated just like men they would be able to think rationally. Therefore that’s why she emphasis that both men and women should have the same