Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Essay Example

Despite of the fact that the majority of Enlighteners stood on patriarchal positions, ideas in protection of female rights and female emancipation for the first time have been stated during the epoch of Enlightenment. It is significant that one of the first who has formulated these ideas was a woman - Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) in her book "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792). Mary Wollstonecraft's work actually is the first feministic project in history. "One of the results of the resurgence in feminist scholarship over the past twenty-five years has been the inclusion of Mary Wollstonecraft in the ranks of early modern political theorists"1. Grounding the idea of female rights, Wollstonecraft bases herself upon positions of the liberal theory of English philosopher John Lock about necessity of recognition of equal rights for all "full citizens". Paradox of the concept of liberalism of Lock, directed against despotism of absolute power, is that as "full citizens" of a potential liberal society he considered independent in relation to a monarch owners private, mainly the land property, which first of all are attributed with the ability to possess intellect, that is to be rational subjects (be capable to operate own land). "The central idea behind Wollstonecraft's work is that women are rational beings and should be treated as such"2. According to Mary Wollstonecraft, as the theorist of the liberal concept of female rights, the most important becomes the philosophical thesis about recognition of a female subject rational. Only in that case a woman has a chance to enter into a liberal continuum of "full citizenship" described by Lock. The other significant thesis is that female sensuality is not purely natural, but socially caused characteristic. Wollstonecraft states, "But, if women are to be excluded, without having a voice from a participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward off the charge of injustice and inconsistency, that they want reason - else this flaw in your NEW CONSTITUTION will ever shew that man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant, and tyranny, in whatever part of society it rears its brazen front, will ever undermine morality"3. In conformity with the above said theoretical issues, considering modern position of women Wollstonecraft recognizes that the majority of women are not yet ready to act in a line with men as their intellect is insufficiently developed because of prevalence of sensual characteristics in it. However this position, in her opinion, is not a consequence of the special nature, female sensuality as considered Russo, or particular qualities of female intellect as considered Kant. Such state of facts first of all is a result of the limited female education, and secondly of deprivations of women of basic civil rights, that is a consequence of certain social reasons which can be changed. Wollstonecraft's aim particularly in "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" is "to add the individual and civil rights of women to the universal category"4. Therefore the main philosophical thesis of enlighteners, which was a subject of Wollstonecraft's critic, is Russo's thesis about "the special female nature", in which sensuality prevails of intellect. Wollstonecraft considers that femininity in that form as it is described by Russo, is a repressive social construct, which will cease to exist provided that socialization of women will pass in the same conditions as socialization of men. The basic object of criticism of Wollstonecraft is so-called "superfluous sensuality" which is imputed to women in Russo's philosophical concept. In her book the author opposes men, who are admired of excessive female sensitivity and stand up for its development. It calls such men "tyrants of sexuality", and women, which agree to cultivate such type of sensuality in itself (sensuality of a sexual object) she calls "slaves of pleasures". Wollstonecraft accepts that owing to sensuality women has an opportunity to use a special form of power above men which is described at Russo. However, unlike Russo, Wollstonecraft, considers that such a "power of women" does not represent an alternative in relation to authoritative power of men and conducts to degradation of both women, who use it, and society as a whole. Such an "enslaved woman" in turn becomes a small tyrant, who finds pleasure in petty imperiousness, caprices and attacks of irritation. Capricious wives, who do not control their desires and cannot organize their relations with men properly, render harmful influence on the environment just as aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France weakened and demoralized the state. Having no code of ethics, which occur from execution of a duty, assiduous work and intellect, such women share vices of the nobility5. In opinion of Wollstonecraft, "superfluous sensuality" puts the greatest harm to family, which she considers as a basis of all public values. Hereof we have enlightening representation that love as expression of uncontrollable feeling cannot form a reliable basis for marriage. A woman, who tries to build relations on such an ephemeral basis, will for sure face personal shocks and bitter disappointments. In rationalistic concept of Wollstonecraft family relations based on relations of a social contract (partnership), allowing a married couple to execute their socially useful duties responsibly are much stronger. Thus, according to Wollstonecraft, ideal matrimonial relations must be based on model of liberal contract of Locke: "To be capable to execute family duties and to be engaged in house affair, which form the moral character, the master and the mistress of family should love each other without passion. I am saying that they should not forgive to themselves those emotions, which break the order in society and divert the thought, which should have the other application". [20] Proving that marriage should not be based on love, rationalism of Wollstonecraft goes so far that uses the following formulations: "an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother"6. So what is the reason of dependent and imperfect state of female subjectivity, which is not adequate to parameters of liberal citizenship According to Wollstonecraft, such reason is nevertheless not natural lack of female thinking (as in concepts of Kant or Russo), but the absence of an opportunity of education for women. As a result of wrong and not regular education the thinking of women, unlike thinking of men, is limited to a level of chaotic and infantile associations, not reaching a level of deduction and generalization. Only access to higher forms of process of thinking, studying of which is a privilege of men, can release women from habitual fragmentary thinking and allow them to make sound judgments and to realize their rational autonomy. "As long as women remain in condition of ignorance, emphasizes Wollstonecraft, they are simultaneously slaves of pleasures and slaves of men". [22] That is why the right to education in the philosophical concept of liberalism of Mary Wollstonecraft becomes the most important civil right for women. Education is necessary both for increase of dignity and self-esteem of women, and for performance of the civil duties by them, it promotes liberation and development of women. The concept of female education of Mary Wollstonecraft fundamentally differs from the philosophical educational concept of female education of Russo. Though as education in both concepts is meant only house education, however its final aims and ways of realization are essentially various by criterion of female emancipation. In the concept of education of Wollstonecraft, the form of dependence of a female subject from authority of the one who has knowledge, the instructor/mentor/man, essentially changes. According to Russo, the tutor is a father or a husband (who the woman entirely and absolutely depends on during her life), according to Wollstonecraft, instructors should be hired teachers, that forms the structural attitude of dependence of a teacher and a schoolgirl in terms of a formal contract supposing the freedom of choice also for woman. Moreover in the Wollstonecraft's concept of education the final goal is essentially transformed. If in Russo's concept education is directed on imputing to a woman of her "particular", "aesthetic", in fact repressive sensitivity and moral, agreeable with so-called "natural destiny of a woman" (limited by sphere of family), according to Wollstonecraft the leading part in education plays the development of gnosiological, logic and philosophical capability of a woman. From the point of view of the modern feministic theory, philosophical position of Wollstonecraft corresponds to the Enlightment form of rationalism and egalitarism, in which modern feministic theorists find out the expression of specifically masculine prospect in treatment of female subjectivity. On fixing the existence in contemporary to her culture of binary oppositions like intellect/sensuality, mind/body, freedom/slavery, civilization/barbarity, where the masculine refers to dominating, and female to subordinated part, Wollstonecraft in logic of liberal egalitarism aspires to identify female with the first, positively estimated part, recognizing by that the universal character of man's rational norm in culture. Approving that the female part of mankind should be considered first of all on by universal, instead of by sexual criterion, she decides to refer all individuals to the supreme (masculine) category, which she considers as sexually and gender neutral, not requiring an opposition on behalf of "excluded another". By that, man's liberal-rationalistic characteristics of subjectivity are considered by Wollstonecraft relevant for both genders. Thence there is a criticism of Enlightment rationalism of Wollstonecraft in the modern feministic theory, which is based principles of sexual/gender distinction. At the same time we should not forget that the huge merit of Mary Wollstonecraft consists in that fact that she for the first time has analyzed the traditional model of female subjectivity as artificial social construct, created within the limits of man's culture. She has appeared with criticism of many characteristics of patriarchal society, which has laid the foundation of all subsequent feministic criticism. She for the first time in history proceed from capability of a female subject to act as the subject of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and although herewith her female subject falls under man's rational norm, the theory of knowledge presented by Wollstonecraft, certainly is one of the first projects of anti-discrimination epistemology, which modern feministic theorists aspire to construct. That is why there is no doubt that Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" is the most radical piece of writing produced in Britain in the 1790's. Bibliography: Gibbons, B. J. Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought Behmenism and Its Development in England. Cambridge studies in early modern British history. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Roberts, Caroline. The Woman and the Hour: Harriet Martineau and Victorian Ideologies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Smith, Hilda L. Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Wollstonecraft, Mary, Sylvana Tomaselli, and Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Men ; with, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Hints. Cambridge texts in the history of political thought. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Read More