Intro to A Vindication of the Rights of Women with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, by Mary Wollstonecraft

[Personal note: I find that while reading Wollstonecraft I realize that a great part of the world has yet to use reason as regards to the female sex and unfortunately use religion as their motive for continuing to place women on a lower social stratum. We still have farther to go in the West, but much of the rest of the world (Islamic society, especially) has yet to take the first step. One wonders whether or not the great works in Western philosophy have even been translated into Arabic or Farsi.]

After thinking about the sweep of history and viewing the present world with anxious care, I find my spirits depressed by the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation. I have to admit, sadly, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized. I have looked into various books on education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but all this has given me is a deep conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the main source of the misery I deplore, and that women in particular are made weak and wretched by a number of cooperating causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, show clearly that their minds are not in a healthy state; as with flowers planted in soil that is too rich, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty [or moral purity and chastity]; and the flamboyant leaves, after giving pleasure to viewers, fade on the stalk, disregarded, long before it was the time for them to reach maturity. This barren blooming is caused partly by a false system of education, gathered from the books on the subject by men. These writers, regarding females as women rather than as human creatures, have been more concerned to make them alluring mistresses [or semi-cloistered in the case of Muslim society] than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and this homage to women's attractions has distorted their understanding to such an extent that almost all the civilized women of the present century are anxious only to inspire love, when they ought to have the nobler aim of getting respect for their abilities and virtues.

In a book on female rights and manners, therefore, the works written specifically for their improvement must not be overlooked; especially when the book says explicitly that women's minds are weakened by false refinement, that the books of instruction written by men of genius have been as likely to do harm as more frivolous productions; and that--when improvable reason is regarded as the dignity that raises men above the lower animal and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand--those 'instructive' works regard women (in true Muslim fashion) as beings of a subordinate kind and not as a part of the human species.

But do not think that because I am a woman that I mean to stir up violently the debated question about the equality and inferiority of the female sex; but that topic does lie across my path, and if I sidle past it, I'll subject my main line of reasoning to misunderstanding. So I shall pause here in order to give a brief statement of my opinion about it. In the government of the physical world--as distinct from the governments of the social or political world--it is observable that the female is, so far as strength is concerned, inferior to male.

This is the law of nature; and it doesn't seem to be suspended or repealed in favor of woman. This physical superiority can't be denied--and it is a noble privilege! But men, not content with this natural preeminence, try to sink us lower still, so as to make us merely alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration that men (under the influence of their senses) pay them, don't try to achieve a permanently important place in men's feelings, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.

[Personal note: I am omitting a bit in which she describes her motives and the manner by which she is writing the work.]

Women are so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence that this artificial weakness produces in them a tendency to tyrannize, and gives birth to cunning--the natural opponent to strength--which leads them to exploit those contemptible infantile airs that undermine esteem even while they excite desire. Let men become more chaste and modest, and if women don't become correspondingly wiser it will be clear that they have weaker understandings. [Personal note: I feel this is from where the tendency for male-dominated society to mistrust female intentions is derived - the more oppressed the females (or anyone else) are in society, the more they must resort to cunning to achieve their desired ends. In the Islamic world, the tendency to mistrust takes on an entirely different dimension due to their distorted views regarding sexuality.]

I hardly need to explain that I am talking about the female sex in general. Many individual women have more sense than their male relatives; some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern. Where there's a constant struggle for equilibrium, nothing will swing the scales its way unless it naturally has greater weight. [Personal note: I do not necessarily agree with Wollstonecraft's views on any right to govern simply by virtue of being more intelligent - particularly when it comes to manipulation, though it is certainly more desirable than somebody holding positions of power simply by virtue of their physical strength. And I must admit that it would certainly be desirable for those in positions of power to be extremely intelligent.]

[Wollstonecraft's work can be viewed in its entirety at: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/wollston.pdf]