The Rights of Women Vindicated: An Analysis of Three of Mary Wollstonecraft's Feminist Arguments
Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the rights of women represents the first of many feminist treatises in philosophical history. Her work makes a variety of compelling arguments for women's rights. This essay will examine three specific arguments found in the text, the argument that education cannot promote women's rights; the argument that reason can promote women's rights; and the argument that common courtesy degrades women.
Mary Wollstonecraft discusses the low value of education and the high value of reason for promoting the rights of women in "The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed," the second chapter of her essay. Her first argument begins with the premise that every time period has a specific set of "popular" values "that [gives] a family character...to the century." [1] Her next premise holds that education socializes students in those prevailing attitudes. As Wollstonecraft states, "Men and women [are] educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in." [2] She concludes that education cannot change until the opinions and values of society change. Therefore, she can make the statement that "education...cannot work the wonders which some sanguine writers have attributed to it." [3]
The end of the paragraph presents a contrasting argument about the power of human reason, which she dissociates from education. She states that pure "reason," as opposed to education, can allow one to "become virtuous." [4] Her conclusion receives support from a negative argument-that if one human being was created intrinsically evil, then no reason exists for belief in God (or alternatively, that God must be evil, an absurd idea given her point of view). Therefore, her first premise holds that God exists. Therefore, every man and woman has the ability to grow ...