Mary Wollstonecraft is considered one of the very first feminists. However throughout her book and chapter 4, of which we have read, she knows that men and women are not equal and she doesn’t aspire for them to be. Mary says that there are areas of life where they should be equal such as education and morality but not that they should be equal in every part of there lives.
Mary wrote this book to respond to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord’s 1791 report to the French National Assembly. In his book he stated that women should only receive a domestic education. As Mary’s main love was education, and her thoughts that women should have the same education as men or at least a rational education she was outraged by Charles’s book and as a result, she wrote her own.
Mary starts chapter 4 by saying that women are to “delight man,” she carries on in the same paragraph to say that, “dismissing these fanciful theories, and considering woman as a whole, let it be what it will, instead of part of man.” Thus meaning that she wants women to stand alone, to be there own person. To have their own opinions, thoughts and rational ideas, women should not need men to form their opinions for them. Women should be “companions” for their husbands and not just wives that look after the children and listen to their husbands; but be able to form an opinion on what their husband says.
“Pleasure is the business of woman’s life” and “little can be expected from such weak beings.” In both accounts Mary is writing about women and how they have been made to act. Without education women can have noting expected of them apart from filling their days making themselves look beautiful and spending afternoons at teas with friends whilst their husbands are at work. Mary goes on to say that even this, their only time filling purpose during the day turns against them after a while. “Experience should teach them that the men who pride themselves upon paying this arbitrary insolent respect to the sex, with the most scrupulous exactness are most inclined to tyrannise over, and despise the very weakness they treasure.” Again after referring to the women that their experience should teach them that men are most inclined to tyrannise them and learn to ignore and dislike the weakness women have that once drew the men in to become their husbands. “Adoration comes first, and the scorn is not anticipated.” This is the cycle of a relationship between men and women in the early 18th century, this how women were treated by men.
Mary also says that women, without virtue are their masters and sovereigns. Meaning that women that don’t have virtue on their side and don’t groom themselves all day for men, do not have a man to look after them and treat them like a slave. They are their own masters; they have no man to control them.
Mary refers to Lord Chesterfield at one point and calls him, “the libertine who, in a gust of passion, takes advantage of unsuspecting tenderness.” As women are only on the earth to please men and men having an education know how to exploit the women to get what they want from them. Mary comments, “Women are always on the watch to please,” and says that women are, “only taught to please.” There is no other way for women to act. When their mothers and grandmothers have only tried to please men all their lives and then taught their children to please men, the cycle continues. Yet if women had an education they could pass this on to their children instead of the need to please men and not themselves.
One of Mary’s arguments is, “if woman be allowed to have an immortal soul, she must have, as the employment of life, an understanding to improve” the rest of her argument goes on to end, “she is incited by present gratification to forget her grand destination, nature is counteracted, or she was born only to procreate and rot.” This means that Mary’s argument is either woman has an immortal soul and wants to improve on life through education or woman wants to please men and fulfil their days with leisure, the “procreate and rot.”
Mary also writes about men only aiming to do the best in their career and then taking a wife to look after him and give him what he wants whereas a woman’s first and only aim is to find a man in a higher class and please him so well he agrees to marry her. She then procreates and dies. This is her life’s work.
Mary quotes Rousseau which helps her reach her exact point, to the whole of the book that she has written. The quote she uses from Rousseau is, “educate women like men, and the more they resemble our sex the less power they will have over us.” Mary continues with, “This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.” This is the point that Mary is forever reaching for and trying to show the women. They can have power over themselves; they don’t have to be termed, “the sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man” but be the sovereigns of themselves. They do not need to please men but please themselves like a libertarian. Men only live to please themselves, no one else. They strive to be the best that they can be, not strive to please others the best that he can.
John Stuart Mill on Liberty – Introduction
Mill says that there are three types of Liberty. They are:
The Liberty of expressing and publishing opinions - This falls under a different principle, since it is written by an individual but concerns many people, Mills says, “being of as much importance as the Liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons.”
Liberty of tastes and pursuits – this is the individual doing exactly what they want to do, however they would like to do it. However it must not hurt anyone else.
The Liberty of each individual – the individuals joining together to follow the liberty. However they must be of the correct age and not forced or deceived into following.
Mill says that “no society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected is free.”
Mill also says that the only way for any individual to be truly free is to pursue, “our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” So the individual has to follow their own route of happiness and then they will be truly free. However in the cause of finding their own liberty they must not impede anyone else that is on their own route to freedom.
Mill also agrees that there has to be a government to defend our country and to punish people that do wrong and harm others. He states, “it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down.” However this means that this one person or group such as a government or King is always fighting to keep their power or gain it if they do not have it. Even if the power is limited.
After attending the Southampton Council meeting on Wednesday 17th February at 3.00pm, I found out what happens in the meetings and actually found the set up and debates quite interesting; much to my surprise.