A Vindication of the Rights of Woman — Mary Wollstonecraft
Page ix: Gonna just skip over this long-ass introduction for the time being, we’ll see if I want to come back to it.
Page 4: “And how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she know why she out to be virtuous?” —> Good point.
Page 6: Irrefragable: impossible to refute, dispute, or break.
Page 12: “In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is a law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied—and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this natural pre-eminence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influences of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.” —> Ohh damn, she said that!
Page 13-14: “I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.” —> Damn, Mary!!
Page 21: “Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly—for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it!—gave life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and the work of man” —> There’s a lot to unpack here.
Page 21: “When that wise Being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because he could see that present evil would produce future good.” —> Uhh I don’t know about that conclusion, Mary. Was that really a popular school of religious thought at the time?
Page 24: “when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure!” —> Lol true.
Page 24-25: “A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprizes that one will directs. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honour, a kind of morality founded on the fashion of the age, can only be felt by a few officers, whilst the main body must be moved by command, like the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with headlong fury.” —> Oooooh this is a great point about the notion of freedom and what a hypocritical idea it is (even back then!) to think that armies provide any sort of freedom to their own members or to other nations.
Page 26: “It is of great importance to observe that the character of every man is, in some degree, formed by his profession.” —> Good point.
Page 26: “Thus, as wars, agriculture, commerce, and literature, expand the mind, despots are compelled, to make covert corruption hold fast the power which was formerly snatched by open force.” —> Ope.
Page 29: “Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.” —> Damn!
Page 32: “But, alas! husbands, as well as their helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks to early debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form—and if the blind lead the blind, one not need come from heaven to tell us the consequences.” —> Lol Mary! You were a prophet of our time, in the saddest and most pathetic of ways. Some things never change, huh.
Page 32: “for the little knowledge which women of strong minds attain, is, from various circumstances, of a more desultory kind than the knowledge of men, and it is acquired more by sheer observations on real life, than from comparing what has been individually observed with the results of experience generalized by speculation.” —> Which I think is better and more telling. Women have knowledge of things we have actually lived and experienced. Men have knowledge only in conceptual forms or by spouting off theories. I know she’s talking about formal education and discipline for boys here, and that girls don’t get that, but I would disagree with that angle and say that worldly education is generally better for people, whether or not they have formal education to match it.
Page 34-35: “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.” —> Not sure I agree that they are “in the right,” but this is certainly an accurate assessment of women’s stances by both of those types of people.
Page 37: “Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man, may have taken its rise from Moses’s poetical story; yet, as very few, it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of Adam’s ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground.” —> Yes!! Although I do think there are still, embarrassingly, plenty of people out there who do literally believe that. That’s why that story was written in the first place, because men had severe womb envy.
Page 39: “He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently use this indefinite term. If they told us that in a pre-existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance.” —> Lmao seriously! She’s just doing the ole smile and nod technique.
Page 41: “In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither bee the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.” —> Yup!
Page 42: “I will go still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother.” —> Hmmm. I think I can see where she’s going with this, but I need her to elaborate.
Page 47: “Following the same train of thinking, I have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary women who have rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit prescribed to their sex, were male spirits, confined by mistake in female frames.” —> Oh you know the TRAs would have a field day with this. Also, damn, Mary, that’s kind of a slap in the face to women, isn’t it.
Page 54: “I, therefore, will venture to assert, that till women are more rationally educated, the progress of human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks.” —> I agree! So-called “progress” is only done when men declare it, so until women are included in that, progress will always have an asterisk next to it.
Page 56: Puerile: childishly silly and trivial.
Page 57: “I will venture to affirm, that a girl, whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless confinement allows her no alternative. Girls and boys, in short, would play harmlessly together, if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long before nature makes any difference.” —> Yes!
Page 58-59: “Women are every where in this deplorable state; for, in order to preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth is hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial character before their faculties have acquired any strength. Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming around its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” —> Hell yeah, Mary, you tell it!
Page 62: “Still I know that it will require a considerable length of time to eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists have planted; it will also require some time to convince women that they act contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy, and to convince the world that the poisoned source of female vices and follies, if it be necessary, in compliance with custom, to use synonymous terms in a lax sense, has been the sensual homage paid to beauty” —> Oh I’m so sorry, Mary, we still have not achieved this.
Page 81: “This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.” —> Yep!
Page 82: “But, the welfare of society is not built on extraordinary exertions; and were it more reasonably organized, there would be sill less need of great abilities, or heroic virtues.” —> True! If women were more involved, things would run even smoother, because women are doing all the small unsung tasks behind the scenes.
Page 92: “For, miserable beyond all names of misery is the condition of a being, who could be degraded without its own consent!” —> i sorta understand the spirit of this sentence, and you can choose your reaction to degradation to a point. But it’s still degradation.
Page 93: “It would almost provoke a smile of contempt, if the vain absurdities of man did not strike us on all sides, to observe, how eager men are to degrade the sex from whom they pretend to receive the chief pleasure of life” —> Seriously!!!
Page 97: Lol wait is this origin of the term “bargain-hunting”?
Page 98: "Man, taking her body, the mind is left to rust; so that while physical love enervates man, as being his favourite recreation, he will endeavour to enslave woman:—and, who can tell, how many generations may be necessary to give vigour to the virtue and talents of the freed posterity of abject slaves?” —> Yikes this is so sad.
Page 99: Oh boy, now she’s going to talk about “writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt.” I’m not going to be familiar with any of these, or by name only, so this chapter is going to be pretty dull.
Page 105: “Slaves and mobs have always indulged themselves in the same excesses, when once they broke loose from authority.—The bent bow recoils with violence, when the hand is suddenly relaxed that forcibly held is” —> Oh this is such a good analogy.
Page 106: “The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong.” —> Hmm.
Page 116: “The pernicious tendency of those books, in which the writers insidiously degrade the sex whilst they are prostrate before their personal charms, cannot be too often or too severely exposed.” —> This is still the case with male authors today tbh.
Page 143: “Men will not become moral when they only build airy castles in a future world to compensate for the disappointments which they meet with in this; if they turn their thoughts from relative duties to religious reveries.” —> Fuckin’ yup!
Page 144-145: “I do not now allude to that quick perception of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power; for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or profound reflection, the raw materials will, in some degree, arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe from the imagination the warm sketches of fancy; but the animal spirits, the individual character, give the colouring. Over this subtile electric fluid, how little power do we possess, and over it how little power can obtain reason!” —> I’m so fascinated by the explanations of science, religion, and intuition of her time period, the way they understood things about the world and their reasons behind it.
Page 148: “They who live to please—must find their enjoyments, their happiness, in pleasure! It is a trite, yet true remark, that we never do any thing well, unless we love it for its own sake.” —> Hmm, true, if you are only allowed to do one thing, you have to find a way to enjoy it otherwise you’ll go mad, I suppose.
Page 152: See, like, here she’s defining the differences between what it means to be modest, humble, or bashful, and I just do not have time for these philosophical ramblings. We all know what they mean. Just move on.
Page 155: “What can be more disgusting than that impudent dross of gallantry, thought so manly, which makes many men stare insultingly at every female they meet? Can it be termed respect for the sex? No, this loose behavior shews such habitual depravity, such weakness of mind, that it is vain to expect much public or private virtue, till both men and women grow more modest” —> Lol Mary calling out catcalling more than 200 years ago, because whaddya know, things never change!
Page 159: “and, by example, girls ought to be taught to wash and dress alone, without any distinction of rank” —> Lol I kinda forgot that there was once a time when a whole class of girls and women didn’t do this for themselves and had maidservants do literally everything for them, including dress them.
Page 161: “Nay, I have often felt hurt, not to say disgusted, when a friend has appeared, whom I parted with full dressed the evening before, with her clothes huddled on, because she chose to indulge herself in bed till the last moment.” —> Lol Mary, chill out.
Page 173: “To satisfy this genus of men, women are made systematically voluptuous, and though they may not all carry their libertinism to the same height, yet this heartless intercourse with the sex, which they allow themselves, depraves both sexes, because the taste of men is vitiated; and women, of all classes, naturally square their behavior to gratify the taste by which they obtain pleasure and power.” —> Hmm. Again saying that women degrade themselves to men when they aim for sexual power only.
Page 173: “Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.” —> True!! However, I have a feeling her definition of “nature” is different than mine.
Page 179: “The whole system of British politics, if system it may courteously be called, consisting in multiplying dependents and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich; thus a war, or any wild goose chace, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.” —> This is also still true of American politics.
Page 186: “Would men but generosity snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers—in a word, better citizens.” —> True, but this is still framing women through the eyes and relationships of men, rather than just for the fact of being women, being human.
Page 199: Lol damn, she’s going hard against Catholic schools here.
Page 207: “It is this power of looking into the heart, and responsively vibrating with each emotion, that enables the poet to personify each passion, and the painter to sketch with a pencil of fire.” —> What a cool sentence.
Page 210: “Besides, this would be a sure ay to promote early marriages, and from early marriages the most salutary physical and moral effects naturally flow.” —> Hard disagree, bad take, Mary.
Page 220: “And in how many ways are children destroyed by the lasciviousness of man?” —> You can fuckin’ say that again!
Page 222: “The conclusion which I wish to draw, is obvious; make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives, and mothers; that is—if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.” —> This is a loaded sentence.
Page 231: Lol she’s going off on how novel-reading is apparently bad for young girls, oh no, how terrible.
