The Contribution of Mary Wollstonecraft to Understanding the Social and Political Situation of Women - Term Paper Example

1 THE CONTRIBUTION OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT TO UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SITUATION OF WOMEN Today, women are in the forefront of practically every aspect of human endeavour. Women have stormed and made an impact in professions that used to be the sole domain of the male specie. As of today, there are already more than 50 female presidents and prime ministers. There are now female astronauts, protestant bishops, police officers, boxers and wrestlers. Women have reached and established dominance in practically all field and areas of life. This ‘invasion and conquest, though, is not yet complete because there are still traditions inimical to female interests which refuse to die away in certain countries. As in India, the dowry, although legally banned, still persists. Indian feminists “decry the dowry, an outlawed but entrenched tradition that can trigger murder. Some greedy grooms kill their mates to marry again- and gain another dowry” ( Hodgson 1985, p. 531). In China, some women are not yet free to choose their mates and in most Muslim countries, women are still subjected to the use of veil or chador, which signifies their role as subordinates. The veil is a form of “sex-segregation that has always been related to such matters as power, domination and exclusion. It has restricted women’s mobility” ( Paidar 1995, p.3). Women’s continuing hold to power and dominance should be deemed as one of the most stirring phenomenon because since time immemorial, women had always occupied the backseat and once were even treated as nothing but a rung higher than dogs in the echelon of society. In biblical times, women were treated as mere possessions: fathers owned them, sold them into bondage and even sacrificed them (Genesis 24:42; 29: 16-28). During the age of royalty, they were treated as slaves or sex objects to be thrown by the king to his harem if he so desires. Up 2 to the time of the 19th century, women were denied the access to education and to political rights such as the right to suffrage, economic independence, employment to any position carrying power and property and other legal rights. Things could have gotten worse had not some gritty, independent, crusading women beat all the odds by going against the status quo and faced ridicule, humiliation, and ostracism by stemming the tide of women’s subjugation, repression and oppression. To protest women’s abject destiny, Emily Davison in 1913 “threw herself under the king’s horse at the Epson Derby and died in the process “ (Taylor 2001, p.23). Emmeline Pankhurst braved arrest and detention in 1914 when “she forcibly tried to enter Buckingham palace to present a petition to the king” (Pankhurst 1914, p.4). But all womanhood owe their current status to Mary Wollstonecraft because she opened all floodgates to women reforms and liberation by writing The Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, “a work that has made her a patron saint of feminism” (Duckworth 2005, p.1). Because of this book, Wollstonecraft had been considered “the first feminist or mother of feminism. Her book length essay on women’s rights and especially on women’s education, is a classic of feminist thought and a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the history of feminism” (Lewis 2005, p.2). Fiona Montgomery regarded her as “the most famous feminist of the 18th century. Her writing provided an inspiration for later feminist movement and became particularly popular with second wave feminism in the 1960’s “ (2005, p.3). Indeed, Wollstonecraft provided the impetus that moved Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem and the rest of the 20th century women’s libbers. The writings of these feminists conjure the literary spirit of Wollstonecraft. She is highly respected and considered the fuse that lit the bomb of women activism. They ascribed to her the act of making the wake-up call and shaking all women who cared for female degrading conditions 3 to do something positive to change their sorry lot. In the writings of the women’s libbers lurk the progressive spirit of Mary Wollstonecraft. As for example, when Maria Mies commented i.e. “In particular, the movement against violence vs. women, against woman-battering, rape, pornography…. challenged the prevailing myth that modernity had civilised the men-women relationship (Mies 1998, p.21), one cannot help but recall Wollstonecraft’s advocacy against the subordination and oppression of women. Wollstonecraft is indeed the inspiration of future feminists as even Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton dedicated their History of Women’s Suffrage (1881) to her. Her main contribution to the women’s movement for liberation and equality is the fact that not only is she the pioneer of women’s feminism but she is also the inspiration and the precursor of the political feminists. Also, her ideas served as the basis for the battle cry of these feminists. It can therefore be claimed that she provided the roots for the growth of the feminist movement. Wollstonecraft never designed herself as the leader of the feminist movement. She was in fact, an accidental feminist activist. Galvanised by revulsion to Edmund Burke’s anti-woman book, ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France ‘ (1790) and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord’s report presented to the National Assembly of France, Wollstonecraft mustered all her mental energies to write a denunciation of the said documents. Burke asserted that “women should only receive a domestic education” ( Burke 1790, p.531). What infuriated Wollstonecraft in de Talleyrand’s treatise were the words “Men are destined to live on the stage of the world. A public education suits them…the paternal home is better for the education of woman; they have less need to deal with the interests of other, than to accustom themselves to a calm and secluded life” (de Talleyrand 1790, p.86). In retaliation, Wollstonecraft “espoused that half of the human population was being held under the yoke and influence of the other half for lack of education, 4 that they were treated as a kind of subordinate beings and not as a part of the human species (Fowler 2006, p.1). Wollstonecraft firmly advocated education of women, side by side with men and thus equality with men, on the aspect of education. She first broached the idea of women becoming great doctors and nurses. She never meant it but she cultivated the idea and the possibility of Cambridge and Oxford to be accessible to women as well. “She believed in education as a means of liberating women and she denied the sexual double standard. Reason was not the prerogative of men alone. By the end of her life, she was championing the natural right of all victims of a patriarchal society, which classified people according to gender, class and age” (Montgomery 2005, p.2). Wollstonecraft ascribed the sorry, degraded and deplorable social and political status of women not only to lack of education and sexual double standards but also to Patriarchy. Patriarchy, which was defined as “literally, the rule by the father but generally it refers to a social situation where men are dominant over women in wealth status and in all other aspects” (Drislane & Parkinson 2005, p.86), was first denounced by Wollstonecraft prior to it being reviled by other feminists such as Mary Daly, Carol Pateman and Margaret Mead. Whereas Mary Daly was direct and generalised i.e. “males and males only are the originators , planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy” (Daly 1978, p.29), Wollstonecraft was indirect, definitive and accusing. She accused men of treating women as property to be traded in marriage or mere ornaments to society whose only strength is their charm and weakness. She also deplored the fact that men had brainwashed women since “their infancy that beauty is women’s scepter… and thus should focus their attention on beauty and outward accomplishments” (Taylor 2003, pp. 14-15). She tried to correct the prevailing patriarchal notion that “men are always, have been, and always will be dominant both in familial relationships and in society at large” and that “women are best suited to be mothers and keep the 5 the home fires burning” (Goldberg 1973, p.3) by stressing that men have indeed a natural superiority over women because of their brute strength advantage but other than this , both should be placed on an equal level “as a just God could not have created one human being superior to another (Wollstonecraft 1792, p. 155). She also stressed that like men, God also gifted women with reason as reason is not the sole prerogative of men. Thus, it was ridiculous to espouse that women were created to feel rather than reason. To claim that the faculty of reason is exclusively a male attribute is despicable. As a rational being, therefore, women deserve the same fundamental rights as men. These “rights cannot be based on tradition. Rights, she argues, should be conferred because they are reasonable and just” (Wollstonecraft 1792, pp.43-44). Natural rights are inalienable rights and should be conferred equally to both men and women. She stressed that “natural rights are given by God and for one segment of society to deny them to another segment is a sin” (Kelly 1992, p.107). Women are a unique kind and thus, should not be measured by men’s standards. Says Wollstonecraft, she has natural talents of her own, which, because educational opportunities were not made available to her, she was unable to harness. Thus, she had difficulty of rising above menial labor and to become respected and to become a valuable member of society. She viciously attacked Jean Jacques Rousseau, who in his book Emile, claimed that it is futile to educate women and “women should be educated only for the pleasure of men”. Wollstonecraft countered that it is a damaging ideology and that women are capable of achieving more if they rightly were given the chance. “Wives could be rational companions of their husbands and even pursue careers should they so choose” (Woolstonecraft 1792, p. 286). She added that “women should be educated rationally in order to give them the opportunity to contribute to society” (Batchellor 2007, p.1). She maintained that 6 education should be made available to women as they are deserving of this as time and again, they had displayed a capacity for rational or abstract thought. What is merely needed is the opportunity to be educated as such will emancipate women and make them rise from their undignified condition and allow them to share the rights of men and thus emulate their virtues. Through education, she claimed that women would be able to “seek moral and social improvement and this stem from an enlightenment faith in human perfectibility” (Duckworth 2005, p.2). It is to the advantage of the nation that women be educated because women educate their children and since they are the primary educators of young children, failure to educate them “will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue….. and that society will degenerate without educated women” (Sapiro 1992, p. 154-155). She further suggested that men and women should have equal educational opportunities and after the same model of education. As such, education should be co-educational. She rationalised that failure to educate women emanates from men’s concept of women not as human beings but as a sequestered class stamped with the gender ‘women’. Women are surely capable of rationality, it only appears that they are not, because they have refused to educate them and encouraged them to be frivolous” (Wollstonecraft 1792, p.144). She also indicated that women’s sorry condition and attempt to extricate from it through education is a vicious circle because since “women are uneducated , they cannot alter their own situation, men must come to their aid (Poovey 1984, p.79). But since men are enmeshed in this vile concept called patriarchy, women are stuck up in the quicksand of subjugation and oppression, which women find impossible to escape. Wollstonecraft’s guns were not only trained against men but also to fellow women and specifically to fellow writers and novelists. In effect, she claimed that women were also guilty of contributory fault. First to taste her vicious words were the female novelists of her time. These 7 could be the Bronte sisters or George Eliot who provided the world with sensitive and emotional characters. Wollstonecraft referred to them as “stupid novelists who further supported this shallow image of women in their works” (Fowler 2006, p.1) She opined that the “soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness” (Wollstonecraft 1792, p. 365). And this weakness includes sense and sensibility, sexual desires and lust, and romanticism. Being too sensitive and sensible, would deny them of mental strength and because they are “the prey of their senses, they cannot think rationally” (Wollstonecraft 1792, p. 177). She even claimed that probably women deserve the abject condition they are in because of their sexual desires and feelings of lust. According to her, “until women can transcend their fleshly desire and fleshly forms, they will be hostage to the body……. and might in fact, court man’s lasciviousness and degrading attentions” (Poovey 1984, p.79). She further intoned , “if women are not interested in sexuality, they cannot be dominated by men”. She also pointed out that “women are consumed with romantic wavering, that is, they are interested only in satisfying their lust” (Woolstonecraft 1792 , p.194. When Wollstonecraft chose to battle patriarchy and the norms of the times, she fought a lonely, pioneering battle. But today, she had gained adherents from the ranks of the feminist writers, who continually allude excerpts of her essays in their own writings. Not only Susan Anthony and Stanton but also Mary Robinson, Hannah More and Mary Hays. This is definitely one legacy she had established for herself i.e. the respect and the immortality of her works not to mention the establishment of standard ideals respecting the social and political situation of women which others have to carry and further elaborate on. It was even reported that Mary Hays “cited the Rights of Woman in her novel of Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) and modeled her female characters after Wollstonecraft’s ideal woman” (Mellor 2002, p.143-144). Another 8 author, who was deeply influenced by Wollstonecraft was the Muslim feminist writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is critical of Islam’s suppression of the rights of women. Ali, in her autobiography, cited the Rights of Women and gushed that she was so inspired by Wollstonecraft because she was a “pioneering feminist thinker who told women they had the same ability to reason as men did and deserved the same rights” (Hirsi Ali 2007 , p.295). Wollstonecraft also expressed disgust over the system of monarchy and predicted its demise and dreamily envisioned a system of republican government wherein “men and women should be represented in government. But the bulk of her political criticism, is couched predominantly in terms of morality” ( Jones 2002, p.43) She also loved to employ analogies to “vividly describe the conditions of women within society. She often compares women to slaves , arguing that their ignorance and powerlessness place them in that position” (Kelley 1992, p.118). Had Wollstonecraft deemed it wise to keep silent after the demeaning descriptions on women by Burke and de Talleyrand, it’s a possibility that up to now no woman could have occupied any position of power and prominence or possibly everything including the right to suffrage could have been delayed by decades or even century. Wollstonecraft’s place in feminist movement was affixed when she blew all caution to the winds and single-handedly defended women. The plight of women, their social and political disadvantages were brought into focus and suddenly moved other women to take up her cudgels, especially after her death. Without her, probably the next batch of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emily Davison and the rest of suffragettes may have been intimidated. But since one bravely penetrated the walls and punctured gender classifications especially patriarchy, windows of hope were suddenly opened for all women. All that women should do is say a little prayer of thanks to one Mary Wollstonecraft who made these things possible and facilitated and speeded up reforms. BIBLIOGRAPHY 9 Batchelor, Jennie 2007, ‘Conduct book’, The Literary Encyclopedia. Burke, Edmund 1790, ‘Reflections on the revolution in France’, J. Dodsley, France. Daly, Mary 1978, ‘Gyn/Ecology: the metaethics of radical feminism’, Beacon Press, Boston. Duckworth, Alistair 2005, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Thomson Gale Corporation, New York. Fowler, Deb 2006, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’,Penguin Books, New York. Goldberg, Steven 1973, ‘The inevitability of patriarchy’,William Morrow & Co., New York. Hirsi Ali, Ayaan 2007, ‘Infidel’, Free Press, New York. Hodgson, Bryan 1985, ‘New Delhi: mirror of India, The National Geographic vol.167, no.4. Jones, Chris 2002, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft. Vindications and their political traditions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Kelly, Gary 1992, Revolutionary Feminism: the mind and the career of Mary Wollstonecraft St. Martin, New York. Lewis, Jone Johnson 2005, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft. a vindication of the rights of woman: Overview of the life and work of England’s early feminist’,Women’s History Guide. Mellor, Anne 2002, A vindication of the rights of women and the women writers of her own day Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Mies, Maria 1998, Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: women in the international. Montgomery, Fiona 2005, ‘Biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, Dictionary of Literary Biography Thomas Gale Corp., New York. Paidar,A. 1995, ‘Gender relations in Persia, www.iranica.com, www.iranica.com/articles/viof 4/ Poovey, Mary 1984,’The proper lady and the woman’s writer ideology as style in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft,University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pankhurst, emmeline 1914, “my own story’, Kraus Reprints, New York. Sapiro, Virginia 1992,’A vindication of political virtue. the political theory of Mary Wollstonecraft, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Taylor, Barbara 2003, ‘Mary Wollstonecraft and the feminist imagination, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Taylor, David 2001, ‘Modern world history for OCR specification, Heineman Publication, London. De Talleyrand, Maurice 1790,’Rapport sur l’instruccion Publique. Wollstonecraft, Mary 1891,’The vindication of the rights of woman’, Walter Scott, London. Read More