I've had to give up on this one, the language isn't doing my dyslexic brain any good.
I understand her intentions but by chapter 2 I was struggling to understand what she was saying with all the old way of speaking.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is a fantastic piece of philosophy, analysis and policy that ventures to allow women to fully engage with the world. Why wasn’t I ever exposed to this? I was lucky to be introduced to so many classics, but women were almost totally absent from my curriculum, especially when it came to philosophy or politics. Wollstonecraft shows that people were writing, talking and thinking about these important issues 222 years ago. She just blew me away with this piece and I highly recommend it to everyone.

Education is at the forefront of her recommendations, noting that women excel at learning, when they are given the same opportunities as their male counterparts. In her introduction, she attributes one cause of the lack of advanced knowledge and cognitive power in women to “a false system of education gathered from the books written on this subject by men, who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than rational wives” (p. 11).

Wollstonecraft works to deobjectify and humanize women: “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their FASCINATING graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists–I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them, that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt” (p.13).

She hits the moralists, and this resonates today with calls from the rightwing and evangelicals in the United States: “And will moralists pretend to assert, that this is the condition in which one half of the human race should be encouraged to remain with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind instructors! what were we created for? To remain, it may be said, innocent; they mean in a state of childhood” (p. 75).

Let me close with one more quote: “I know that libertines will also exclaim, that woman would be unsexed by acquiring strength of body and mind, and that beauty, soft bewitching beauty! would no longer adorn the daughters of men. I am of a very different opinion for I think, that on the contrary, we should then see dignified beauty, and true grace; to produce which, many powerful physical and moral causes would concur. Not relaxed beauty, it is true, nor the graces of helplessness; but such as appears to make us respect the human body as a majestic pile, fit to receive a noble inhabitant, in the relics of antiquity” (p. 209).

very intriguing, full of contradictions and unsatisfying statements, but also there's a lot of good stuff in there and given its time it's quite iconic.
also, she's funny! the war with Rousseau in the footnotes made me laugh.

An enlightening insight into the perspectives of a late 18th Century middle class female thinker. There is much here that could be seen to inspire the generations to come, and to stand up for the authority of reason ahead of tradition. At the same time there is an intriguing tension between many views that might be considered the norm today, and some that feel very much of their era in their affirmation of a stratified perspective of how the sexes relate to each other. What frustrates about the work is that at time digression and embellishment sometimes make it a more difficult read than it could have been. Having said this it is till well worth the effort and provides a great example of how forward thinkers may in the future be judged for the dissonance in their work, rather than recognised for how their ground-breaking ideas formed our world, simply because we already assume and so don't notice much of what they advocate for.

This was a book that is on my "bucketlist' of books I have to read before I die. I'm glad I read it, it's a pleasant reminder of how far we have come.

Good stuff. It's surprising how much of this still needs to be addressed. The writing is pretty dense, but it's worth a look, at least.

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”

It’s 1792, and Mary Wollstonecraft is RAGING. Here she goes on the rampage, railing against Burke in an essay about the Rights of Men and tearing Rousseau (and society) a new one about the Rights of Women for, like, a novel-length diatribe. And it’s so hardcore. This is heavy metal.

Yes, it’s repetitive and overlong and grows tedious at time, and not everything translates perfectly to 21st century feminism, I’m not surprised. But man, someone resurrect Mary Wollstonecraft to fight the fight now? She’d have so much to say about the flaws of the modern beauty industry alone, I swear. Anyway, so much of what she says is radical and still way too relevant. She talks about equality in education and the fucked-up-ness of separating children and forcing girls to play with dolls and being raised to be “slaves” to their husbands, essentially weak simpering objects of lust designed “to please.” This is like that Barbie movie monologue but SO MUCH ANGRIER. In the background she finds time to talk class and consider the family structure and the problems of hereditary wealth and I’m so very interested in learning more about her life now. Also, like. Imagine being born Mary Shelley, and finding out your dead mother was this RADICAL ???? It’s so much to think about.

“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.”

“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”

Mary Wollstonecraft presents a bold and thought-provoking critique of the societal norms and expectations that have long been placed on women. Drawing parallels with Enlightenment thinkers like Kant and Rousseau, Wollstonecraft diverges significantly, offering a sharp and courageous argument that women’s ability to develop critical thinking and reason is stunted by the societal pressures and infantilization they face. Her critique challenges the prevailing notion that women are inherently inferior or suited only for domestic roles, advocating for intellectual and moral development that benefits both women and society as a whole.

What stood out to me most in Wollstonecraft's writing was her unflinching focus on the systemic obstacles faced by women. From the idea that women should prioritize pleasing others over pursuing their own desires to the restrictive gender roles that limit autonomy and agency, she deconstructs the ways in which society discourages women from becoming fully realized individuals. She urges women to reject passive obedience and strive for true virtue, arguing that a society in which women are empowered to reason and make independent choices is ultimately more just and equitable.

Wollstonecraft’s work remains a seminal text in feminist philosophy, continuing to inspire generations of thinkers to challenge the status quo in pursuit of gender equality and women’s rights. Her message is timeless and resonates with a modern audience, calling for both individual empowerment and collective social change.

At the end of the day, she’s just a girl. But she was clearly a girl’s girl <3