Feminism from Different Perspectives - Essay Example

Mary Wollstonecraft and Sor Juana de la Cruz: Feminism from different Perspectives Both Mary Wollstonecraft and Sor Juana de la Cruz had in ways similar views of feminism. They had similar views in regards towards equality and education, but their backgrounds led them to take different approaches towards the views of feminism. While they share similar ideas, it is exactly because of their differing backgrounds that differences can be found in their works. The aspect of de la Cruz that sets her apart most distinctly from Wollstonecraft was that she was a nun. Thus, much of her work came from a theological point of view. It did not make any sense to her that God would create women as an inferior being to men: “Like men, do not women have a rational soul? When then shall they not enjoy the privilege of the enlightenment of letters? Is a woman’s soul not as receptive to God’s grace and glory as man’s?” (Poems xliii). Her view of equality comes from the idea that she does not believe that a just God would create women with natural handicaps. It is exactly because of her view that people were created by a just God that she believed that women possessed the same sort of mental faculties that men possessed. If God had created men and women, and God had created women as beings that were less rationally capable, then she believed that that would have made God unjust. As she believed that God was in fact just, she believed in equality between men and women. In de la Cruz’s view, the wonders of the world were centered around people’s ability to reason. It is because of people’s ability to reason that they are able to realize how gloriously God created the world. If women had less of an ability to reason, then they would not be able to fully realize the glories of the world that God had created. This more specifically was the reason as to why de la Cruz felt that the justness of God would have required for men and women to be given equal abilities to reason. Many women, even in upper class families, were not taught to read. De la Cruz’s mother, for example, was not taught to read. As many women could not read, they were unable to learn from many of the great thinkers throughout history, so in this way men had an advantage over women, but many men thought that women’s intelligence was a matter of a natural thing, not a matter of education. As de la Cruz was educated and very intelligent, she was able to personally disprove this idea: :Sor Juana maintained that both her drive to learn and her intellectual gifts were God given, but that her arguments were open to rational scrutiny” (Selected 6) Though she was a nun and many of her arguments came from a theological perspective, she was also very much inclined towards scientific modes of discourse. As science showed, there was not a natural reason as to why men were more intelligent creatures. Her tendency towards scientific reasoning also put her at odds with the church, who viewed scientific methods to be challenging towards their concepts of God. Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the first to advocate equality for women in the modern European world: “modern feminism in the English-speaking world begins with Mary Wollstonecraft’s appeals for women’s inclusion in a public life overwhelmingly dominated by men” (Ferguson 427). Wollstonecraft, however, came from a political perspective, as opposed to a religious perspective. She, in fact, would have argued that the religion was a patriarchal system itself, and that a true equality would have found itself at odds if it was developed from a religious perspective. Similar, to de la Cruz, Wollstonecraft advocated education for women, and stated that if women did appear to be mentally inferior to men, it was merely because of the lack of educational opportunities for women. While de la Cruz put forth much of her views in the form of poetry, Wollstonecraft took a more direct approach, as this was more effective if trying to influence politics: “Wollstonecraft tells us in the dedication of Vindication of the Rights of Women that it was intended to influence the writers of the French Revolutionary constitution then being made” (Barker-Benfield 95). While de la Cruz might have hoped to influence people on a more intellectual level, Wollstonecraft’s desire was to affect direct change through influencing legislation. Also, de la Cruz’s and Wollstonecraft’s perceptions of women differed in that Wollstonecraft found problems for women in modern society’s conception of class and family: “Wollstonecraft’s treatment of class and family to be evidence of a socialist subtext, and credits her work with paving the way for the emergence of the utopian brand of socialist feminism some thirty years later” (Ferguson 428). As socialism, and communism as the further extension of socialism, had little use for religion, Wollstonecraft’s perception of feminism would have strongly differed from de la Cruz’s religion-based feminism. With a stronger emphasis on the political, Wollstonecraft was a strong influence on the feminist idea that the personal ins political. As a nun, de la Cruz would not have advocated any sort of a separation with traditional family values. Religion and traditional family values are generally closely linked, and this is where de la Cruz and Wollstonecraft differed the most. As much of Wollstonecraft’s work centered around class system and traditional family functions, she felt that both religion and traditional views of marriage were patriarchal in nature and could not have inspired a feminism with a strong foundation, while de la Cruz would have felt that equality merely was in regards to be treated as intellectual equals. Both of these women dealt with similar difficulties in their lives. As they were both writing against patriarchal systems that gave men advantages over women, they both were in some sense suppressed by men that did not find these women’s views to their liking. Mary Wollstonecraft, whose husband wrote about her lifestyle in a book after her death, was considered to be for a long time to be considered inappropriate to be read. It was not till the twentieth century that her legacy has rescued and her works were studied more intensely, as opposed to her lifestyle being commented upon. De la Cruz was forced into retirement by church superiors because her opinions were contrary to many of their teachings. Even with their differing backgrounds and perspectives, they still ended up with similar fates in regards to their ability to write and be taken seriously. Works Cited Barker-Benfield, G.J., “Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthwoman.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1989), pp. 95-115.. De la Cruz, Sor Juana, Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings. Penguin Books, New York, 1997. De la Cruz, Sor Juana, Selected Writings. Paulist Press, Mahwah, NY, 2005. Ferguson, Susan, “The Radical Ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft.” Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 427-450 Read More