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
In short, women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes,
have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed
the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise,
that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions
out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their
understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of
their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by
every momentary gust of feeling. They are, therefore, in a much
worse condition than they would be in, were they in a state nearer
to nature. Ever restless and anxious, their over exercised
sensibility not only renders them uncomfortable themselves, but
troublesome, to use a soft phrase, to others. All their thoughts
turn on things calculated to excite emotion; and, feeling, when
they should reason, their conduct is unstable, and their opinions
are wavering, not the wavering produced by deliberation or
progressive views, but by contradictory emotions. By fits and
starts they are warm in many pursuits; yet this warmth, never
concentrated into perseverance, soon exhausts itself; exhaled by
its own heat, or meeting with some other fleeting passion, to which
reason has never given any specific gravity, neutrality ensues.
Miserable, indeed, must be that being whose cultivation of mind has
only tended to inflame its passions! A distinction should be made
between inflaming and strengthening them. The passions thus
pampered, whilst the judgment is left unformed, what can be
expected to ensue? Undoubtedly, a mixture of madness and folly!
This observation should not be confined to the FAIR sex; however,
at present, I only mean to apply it to them.
Novels, music, poetry and gallantry, all tend to make women the
creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed during
the time they are acquiring accomplishments, the only improvement
they are excited, by their station in society, to acquire. This
overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the
mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that sovereignty which
it ought to attain, to render a rational creature useful to others,
and content with its own station; for the exercise of the
understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by
nature to calm the passions.
Satiety has a very different effect, and I have often been forcibly
struck by an emphatical description of damnation, when the spirit
is represented as continually hovering with abortive eagerness
round the defiled body, unable to enjoy any thing without the
organs of sense. Yet, to their senses, are women made slaves,
because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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