Mary Wollstonecraft was a feminist writer who believed that men and women were created equal by God and therefore should be equal within society, because if God deemed them equal then they should be treated equally within a civilised society. Within the reading she comments on how women are treated within different aspects of life and also how women in the different classes were treated and how they differ from each other because of their upbringing and virtue.
This view that man and woman are created equal is like Locke's idea that everyone is born as a blank slate with no prior knowledge and then as we experience the world knowledge is gained through out experiences. She questions that the most important question is whether or not a woman can reason, because if she can do this then she has the key to knowledge. She also writes about how understanding has been denied to women because they have lost the power to draw conclusions from ideas
Education, she believes, is one of the key ways of creating equality between men and women because an educated woman can be dependent from her husband; because dependency on a husband makes upper class women weak minded. "The very constitution of civil governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the way to prevent the cultivation of the female understanding; yet virtue can be built on no other foundation. The same obstacles are thrown in the way of the rich, and the same consequences ensue." This quote highlights how highly she views education in shaping people, saying it is the only way to become virtuous, but also how the class structure and government hinder female education.
On the subject of education Wollstonecraft shares some of the ideas of Rousseau: "Educate women like men," says Rousseau, "and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us." This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves." This is an important factor to Wollstonecraft's thinking; she does not want women to have power over men, or visa versa, but wants people to have power over themselves. I think this is the main reason why Wollstonecraft dislikes the class system, because it gives men dominance over their wives.
She believes that an education can help to guard against the allure of false romance: "It is not against strong, persevering passions, but romantic wavering feelings, that I wish to guard the female heart by exercising the understanding: for these paradisiacal reveries are oftener the effect of idleness than of a lively fancy."
She writes that when a man becomes older he has a goal to a future advantage which he has gained through his education Whereas a woman who has not had the same education does not have the same goals or direction, rather she aspires to marry advantageously so that they may more from pleasure to pleasure. She said "Pleasure is the business of woman's life, according to the present modification of society; and while it continues to be so, little can be expected from such weak beings." Which underpins her opinions in how the current society makes women weak and subservient.
Wollstonecraft also writes about marriage in this chapter. She appreciates the sanctity and importance of marriage but also questions the formation of marriage and relationships through love and sex. She believes that a persons sex should only matter when a relationship or marriage is involved, other than that is should not be considered important. Her opinion on love is interesting, she said that: "Love, considered as an animal appetite, cannot long feed on itself without expiring.... But the wife, who has thus been rendered licentious, will probably endeavour to fill the void left by the loss of her husband's attentions; for she cannot contentedly become merely an upper servant after having been treated like a goddess." So once a woman looses the love of her husband she will then want to experience the "sunshine of life" rather than care for her children; because after being lavished by her husband she does not want to subside into being am upper servant. In fact she later writes that love does not exist on Earth but it is rather a sensuality hidden under a sentimental veil, and has come from the imagination.
Wollstonecraft comments on how women in different classes of society differ within marriage claiming that upper class women are the most subservient and are treated like caged birds and have nothing to do but plume themselves because everything is provided for them by their husband. But rather than paying for this or working for it, Wollstonecraft said that their liberty and virtue is given in return.” This, however, arises in a great degree from the state of idleness in which women are educated, who are always taught to look up to man for a maintenance, and to consider their persons as the proper return for his exertions to support them." She also writes about how women are educated to feel that they must give themselves as payment for their husbands care.
The idea that the weakness of women is attributed to their position in society is something that is repeated throughout the chapter, she believes that if the role of a woman continues to be so subservient in the upper classes then women will never become equal. "It is to be feared that women will avail themselves of the power which they attain with the least exertion, and which is the most indisputable." This means that women will continue to gain power by marrying powerful and educated men if it is easier than becoming educated themselves and working for their power. She writes that the way to happiness is to return to a state of nature where labour is rewarded with true pleasure. This idea of pleasure through labour can also be linked to her views on higher and middle class wives, the first of which are subservient and has not laboured in life and therefore hasn't experienced true pleasure; whereas the other has laboured through life and therefore will have experienced true pleasure.
