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
"Girls are from their earliest infancy fond of dress. Not content
with being pretty, they are desirous of being thought so; we see,
by all their little airs, that this thought engages their
attention; and they are hardly capable of understanding what is
said to them, before they are to be governed by talking to them of
what people will think of their behaviour. The same motive,
however, indiscreetly made use of with boys, has not the same
effect: provided they are let to pursue their amusements at
pleasure, they care very little what people think of them. Time
and pains are necessary to subject boys to this motive.
"Whencesoever girls derive this first lesson it is a very good one.
As the body is born, in a manner before the soul, our first concern
should be to cultivate the former; this order is common to both
sexes, but the object of that cultivation is different. In the one
sex it is the developement of corporeal powers; in the other, that
of personal charms: not that either the quality of strength or
beauty ought to be confined exclusively to one sex; but only that
the order of the cultivation of both is in that respect reversed.
Women certainly require as much strength as to enable them to move
and act gracefully, and men as much address as to qualify them to
act with ease."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Children of both sexes have a great many amusements in common; and
so they ought; have they not also many such when they are grown up?
Each sex has also its peculiar taste to distinguish in this
particular. Boys love sports of noise and activity; to beat the
drum, to whip the top, and to drag about their little carts:
girls, on the other hand, are fonder of things of show and
ornament; such as mirrors, trinkets, and dolls; the doll is the
peculiar amusement of the females; from whence we see their taste
plainly adapted to their destination. The physical part of the art
of pleasing lies in dress; and this is all which children are
capacitated to cultivate of that art."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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