Jan 26- Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Mary Wollstonecraft grew up with an alcoholic father and she took care of her family because her father could not do so. She wrote one of the first responses to a piece by Burke (a Whig) on the reflections of the revolution in France- in 1789 and she wrote her first piece in 1789 titled "The Vindication of the Rights of Men" anonymously. She writes it as if she was a man and readers believe that the author was a man. Manly= virtuous and rational. Mary defends democracy and the republic. In 1792 she writes "Vindication of the Rights of Woman"- singular, implying the individual not society. She fell in love with Gilbert, they professed love to each other (to her it was married) and had his child out of wedlock. She believed it was marriage- he did not, he thought they were just lovers since it was not legal.

When we use the word men people assume that we are talking about the public, the society as a whole. Yet we never use the word "woman" to refer to society as a whole or when we describe the populous.

Chapters 2-5: Her argument in chapter 2 is that women are being degraded because their education that they are given is taught to make them sexually alluring to man. Soldiers are like women because they do as they are told, to be moved up in rank/socially they have to behave a certain way socially. Soldiers are educated to behave a certain way as are women- proving women are not naturally inferior? Are women educated to be "weak" now? Are we grooming women to be dependent and not independent?