Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Principal events in Wollstonecraft's life
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the edition
- A Vindication of the Rights of Men
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The rights and involved duties of mankind considered
- 2 The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed
- 3 The same subject continued
- 4 Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes
- 5 Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
- 6 The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
- 7 Modesty. – Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual virtue
- 8 Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a good reputation
- 9 Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society
- 10 Parental affection
- 11 Duty to parents
- 12 On national education
- 13 Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women generates; with concluding reflections on the moral improvement that a revolution in female manners might naturally be expected to produce
- Hints, chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the second part of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Biographical notes
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
5 - Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Principal events in Wollstonecraft's life
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the edition
- A Vindication of the Rights of Men
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The rights and involved duties of mankind considered
- 2 The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed
- 3 The same subject continued
- 4 Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes
- 5 Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
- 6 The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
- 7 Modesty. – Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual virtue
- 8 Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a good reputation
- 9 Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society
- 10 Parental affection
- 11 Duty to parents
- 12 On national education
- 13 Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women generates; with concluding reflections on the moral improvement that a revolution in female manners might naturally be expected to produce
- Hints, chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the second part of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Biographical notes
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on the female character and education, which have given the tone to most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the sex, remain now to be examined.
Section I
I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of his character of woman, in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles, and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that it seems necessary to attack. it in a more circumstantial manner, and make the application myself.
Sophia, says Rousseau, should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is a man, and to render her so, it is necessary to examine the character which nature has given to the sex.
He then proceeds to prove that woman ought to be weak and passive, because she has less bodily strength than man; and hence infers, that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and that it is her duty to render herself agreeable to her master - this being the grand end of her existence. Still, however, to give a little mock dignity to lust, he insists that man should not exert his strength, but depend on the will of the woman, when he seeks for pleasure with her.
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- Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints , pp. 156 - 199Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995