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 pecuniary concerns of her father becoming embarrassed, Mary
practised a rigid economy in her expenditures, and with her savings
was enabled to procure her sisters and brothers situations, to
which without her aid, they could not have had access; her father
was sustained at length from her funds; she even found means to
take under her protection an orphan child.
She had acquired a facility in the arrangement and expression of
thoughts, in her avocation of translator, and compiler, which was
no doubt of great use to her afterward. It was not long until she
had occasion for them. The eminent Burke produced his celebrated
"Reflections on the Revolution in France." Mary full of sentiments
of liberty, and indignant at what she thought subversive of it,
seized her pen and produced the first attack upon that famous work.
It succeeded well, for though intemperate and contemptuous, it was
vehemently and impetuously eloquent; and though Burke was beloved
by the enlightened friends of freedom, they were dissatisfied and
disgusted with what they deemed an outrage upon it.
It is said that Mary, had not wanted confidence in her own powers
before, but the reception this work met from the public, gave her
an opportunity of judging what those powers were, in the estimation
of others. It was shortly after this, that she commenced the work
to which these remarks are prefixed. What are its merits will be
decided in the judgment of each reader; suffice it to say she
appears to have stept forth boldly, and singly, in defence of that
half of the human race, which by the usages of all society, whether
savage or civilized, have been kept from attaining their proper
dignity--their equal rank as rational beings. It would appear that
the disguise used in placing on woman the silken fetters which
bribed her into endurance, and even love of slavery, but increased
the opposition of our authoress: she would have had more patience
with rude, brute coercion, than with that imposing gallantry,
which, while it affects to consider woman as the pride, and
ornament of creation, degrades her to a toy--an appendage--a
cypher. The work was much reprehended, and as might well be
expected, found its greatest enemies in the pretty soft
creatures--the spoiled children of her own sex. She accomplished
it in six weeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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