A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral SubjectsWollstonecraft, Mary
Philosophy
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Feminism; Women -- Education -- Great Britain; Women -- History -- 19th century; Women's rights -- Great Britain
The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain,
always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints,
copied with tasteless servility after the antiques; the soul is
left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may
properly be termed character. This varnish of fashion, which
seldom sticks very close to sense, may dazzle the weak; but leave
nature to itself, and it will seldom disgust the wise. Besides,
when a woman has sufficient sense not to pretend to any thing which
she does not understand in some degree, there is no need of
determining to hide her talents under a bushel. Let things take
their natural course, and all will be well.
It is this system of dissimulation, throughout the volume, that I
despise. Women are always to SEEM to be this and that--yet virtue
might apostrophize them, in the words of Hamlet--Seems! I know not
seems!--Have that within that passeth show!--
Still the same tone occurs; for in another place, after
recommending, (without sufficiently discriminating) delicacy, he
adds, "The men will complain of your reserve. They will assure you
that a franker behaviour would make you more amiable. But, trust
me, they are not sincere when they tell you so. I acknowledge that
on some occasions it might render you more agreeable as companions,
but it would make you less amiable as women: an important
distinction, which many of your sex are not aware of."
This desire of being always women, is the very consciousness that
degrades the sex. Excepting with a lover, I must repeat with
emphasis, a former observation--it would be well if they were only
agreeable or rational companions. But in this respect his advice
is even inconsistent with a passage which I mean to quote with the
most marked approbation.
"The sentiment, that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms,
provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and
dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of your sex." With this
opinion I perfectly coincide. A man, or a woman, of any feeling
must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the
caresses of the individual, not the sex, that is received and
returned with pleasure; and, that the heart, rather than the
senses, is moved. Without this natural delicacy, love becomes a
selfish personal gratification that soon degrades the character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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