Reason and women’s education
Follow the argument of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman from shared reason to the reform of girls’ education and of women’s place in civic life.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Written in about six weeks and published in January 1792, it was revised for a second edition the same year. The book answers Talleyrand’s report on public education and belongs to the debate on rights opened by the French Revolution; its appeals to Providence and to motherhood are part of the argument, not mere concessions to its period. Wollstonecraft argues that women are rational and moral beings whose apparent inferiority results from a false system of education and from dependence on men. She examines conduct books and Rousseau’s portrait of Sophie, defends a single standard of virtue for both sexes and calls for national coeducational schools and for women’s access to work and civic life.
Following the arguments
Education : Women’s minds are weakened by instruction designed to make them pleasing, and only a rational education can make their virtue their own. Critique of Rousseau : Book V of Émile serves as the model of a pedagogy that trains girls in obedience, coquetry and dependence. Citizenship : Wollstonecraft wants women to enter professions and gain legal standing, and even hints that they should have representatives in government.
Continuing the reading
Begin with the dedication and the introduction, then read chapter 5 on Rousseau and the conduct books and chapter 12 on national education. Written in about six weeks and published in January 1792, it was revised for a second edition the same year. The book answers Talleyrand’s report on public education and belongs to the debate on rights opened by the French Revolution; its appeals to Providence and to motherhood are part of the argument, not mere concessions to its period.
A virtue not grounded in understanding is only habit, and denying women education makes their dependence look natural.
Your turn to think.
- Which supposedly feminine weaknesses does Wollstonecraft trace to education rather than to nature?
- Why does she hold that a duty not founded on reason cannot be binding?
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