Mary Wollstonecraft's Analysis

Words: 596
Pages: 3

Throughout Mary Wollstonecraft’s life she was challenged with a struggle between the idea of what a patriarchal society deemed a proper female was to be and the need for emancipation for women from the suffocating social standards of the time. According to Wollstonecraft, women are burdened by society to become “alluring mistresses” with minimal if any education and those who were fortunate enough to have received an education were only educated in French, painting, and music.(Wollstonecraft 102) Expanding on her example of women’s place in society, Wollstonecraft states, “Women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect. (Wollstonecraft 102) With this statement, Wollstonecraft was referring to the need for women to be afforded the respect and nobility of receiving an equal education as well as societal standing as that of their male counterparts.
Wollstonecraft spoke openly and boldly of the need for change allowing females to become educated as well as advancing the females place in society. Wollstonecraft further proposed women be allowed
…show more content…
However, Enfield strongly disagreed with Wollstonecraft’s desire for women to take their place in government. Enfield rejected, “Wollstonecraft’s desire for women to assume and active role in civil government,” that they abandon “the useful and elegant labors of the needle,” and that the distinction of sexes be obliterated in social intercourse save where “love animates the behavior.” (Janes 295) According to Janes, Enfield believed Wollstonecraft’s first and second count to be of “little importance improving the condition and character of women, and the third impracticable outside of Heaven.” (Janes