Seated upon a sofa ridden with dog hair, an individual is not surprised to see two people materialize in her living room.
Riley Creed:Oh yay, its that time again when strange dead people suddenly drop by for a visit. Who are you people and what do you want?
Molly Wollstonecraft: Forgive me, I am Molly Wollstonecraft and might I inquire where I am?
Riley: My living room. Who are you?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, at your service.
Riley: Oh, this is going to be fantastic. Two 18th century moral and political philosophers in my living room. Both people, if historical accounts are to be taken seriously, that apparently didn't like each other.
Wollstonecraft: Theories on the social standing between Mister Rousseau and myself matter not. Matters of educational theory and their substantial backings do.
Rousseau: After all this time you and I still debating the nature of the sexes. Do you still think that your fight for independence will win?
Riley: From societies standpoint, yes, yes she did. In the United States women won voting rights as early as 1893. In little over a century after you died, women fought for equal citizenship and civil rights and won. Now women hold jobs just like men, education is level across the board and discrimination is being prosecuted. The views that women should be subservient to men is dying and that society, your society, is dying with it.
Wollstonecraft: There is justice in the end, Mister Rousseau.
Rousseau: But is everything truly as you say it is? Merely by decrypting your word choice you state there there is still discrimination and social acceptance for male superiority. I would also care to bet that education and job equality is also not as equal as you say it is. By natu...
... middle of paper ...
...nto the night. Separate ways of course, they still hate each other.
Works Cited
Bertram, Christopher. "Jean Jacques Rousseau." Stanford University. Stanford University, 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Douglas, Julie. "Women in Science." Stuff Mom Never Told You. Stuff Mom Never Told You, 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Imbornoni, Ann-Marie. "Women's Rights Movement in the U.S." Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. "Jean - Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762)." Jean - Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762). Stanford University Press, 1983. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Tomaselli, Sylvana. "Mary Wollstonecraft." Stanford University. Stanford University, 16 Apr. 2008. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Wollstonecraft, Molly. "A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN." A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. Paula Gaber, 1993. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Throughout history, women have been portrayed as the passive, subdued creatures whose opinions, thoughts, and goals were never as equal as those of her male counterparts. Although women have ascended the ladder of equality to some degree, today it is evident that total equalization has not been achieved. Simone De Beauvoir, feminist and existential theorist, recognized and discussed the role of women in society today. To Beauvoir, women react and behave through the scrutiny of male opinion, not able to differentiate between their true character and that which is imposed upon them. In this dangerous cycle women continue to live up to the hackneyed images society has created, and in doing so women feel it is necessary to reshape their ideas to meet the expectations of men. Women are still compelled to please men in order to acquire a higher place in society - however, in doing this they fall further behind in the pursuit of equality.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.
Narratives such as Rowlandson’s gave a voice to women in the realm of written words, but at the cost of the Native voice. According to the website www.maryrowlandson.com,
"Women's Rights Movement." The New Book of Knowledge. Grolier Online, 2013. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
Rousseau argues that “women ought to be weak and passive, because she has less bodily strength than man; and hence infers, that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and that it is her duty to render herself agreeable to her master” (Wollstonecraft 79). Thus affirming that women were in more of a slave-like condition than an equal. Wollstonecraft views marriage as a bond of friendship and love rather than the man holding all of the power in the relationship and the woman just being there to please her husband. Women are not viewed as equals, but more so an outlet for quick pleasure and nothing more. Wollstonecraft states that, “Most of the evils of life arise from a desire of present enjoyment that outruns itself. The obedience required of women in the marriage state comes under this description; the mind, naturally weakened by depending on authority, never exerts its own powers, and the obedient
Rousseau is firstly justified in his claim that perfectibility led to the abolishment of the gentleness of natural man and resulted in a competition
While the problems within civil society may differ for these two thinkers it is uncanny how similar their concepts of freedom are, sometimes even working as a logical expansion of one another. Even in their differences they shed light onto new problems and possible solutions, almost working in tandem to create a freer world. Rousseau may not introduce any process to achieve complete freedom but his theorization of the general will laid the groundwork for much of Marx’s work; similarly Marx’s call for revolution not only strengthens his own argument but also Rousseau’s.
The National Women's History Project. "The Path of the Women's Rights Movement: A Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement 1848-1998." Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement 1848-1998. 17 April 1999, <http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html> (15 October 199).
It is imperative to outline such mode of education regarded by each as the best to raise a woman. Since Wollstonecraft critiques much of Rousseau’s, I begin with his model. “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the author of things; everything degenerates into the hands of man,” is the first line of Book I in Rousseau’s Emile or On Education (161). Emile is not a book for a social system of education, but one specifically for the “tender and foresighted mother, who [is] capable of keeping the nascent shrub away from the highway and securing it from the impact of human opinions”(162). Therefore, the mother is advised to “observe nature and follow the path it maps out to you” in the education of her children, the same nature which Rousseau has taken to educate the imaginary Emile and Sophie: the man and the woman; the future husband and wife. Therefore, in educating the perfect woman, the futu...
5. Niccolo Machiavelli, Selected Political Writings: The Prince and The Discourses on Livy, Hackett Publishing Company, 1994.
Firstly, each individual should give themselves up unconditionally to the general cause of the state. Secondly, by doing so, all individuals and their possessions are protected, to the greatest extent possible by the republic or body politic. Lastly, all individuals should then act freely and of their own free will. Rousseau thinks th...
In Mary Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, Wollstonecraft constantly compares men and women. Her comparison ranges from their physical nature to their intelligence, and even down to the education that each sex received.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a text written by Mary Wollstonecraft with the focus of education and gender being the main theme evident. Wollstonecraft advocates education as the key for women to accomplish a sense of dignity and a mental self-image that can empower them to live life to their full abilities and effectiveness. The text analyzes how women are suppressed from their privileges due to the ideals of the overall European society. Women are illustrated as slaves, who are confined in the home, and only do domestic work, care for the children and they inhibit "natural" characteristics such as being humble, pure and beautiful. Women are revealed as frail and easy going, which is the core reason society regards them as not adequate
In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau hypothesizes the natural state of man to understand where inequality commenced. To analyze the nature of man, Rousseau “strip[ped] that being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he could have received, and of all the artificial faculties he could have acquired only through a lengthy process,” so that all that was left was man without any knowledge or understanding of society or the precursors that led to it (Rousseau 47). In doing so, Rousseau saw that man was not cunning and devious as he is in society today, but rather an “animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but all in all, the most advantageously organized of all” (47). Rousseau finds that man leads a simple life in the sense that “the only goods he knows in the un...
As previously mentioned, inferiority perceptions and obstacles for women remain prevalent in the twenty-first century. Although substantial progress has been made with regards to the educational opportunities for women, as well as educating both men and women to view women with equal regard, we have yet to achieve parity among genders. In particular, “Contemporary feminists, such as Catherine MacKinnon, argue that the law and society’s political institutions are based on male assumptions, such that women can never achieve equality within them” (Tannenbaum, 2012, p. 220). Additionally, the recent focus on gender socialization directly relates to Wollstonecraft’s writings. In fact, she may be one of the first philosophers to establish the foundation for studying gender socialization through her assertions from two hundred years ago, “the character of women was artificial, and a consequence of the roles society defines for them” (p. 213a). Tannenbaum’s summary of Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, reads as though it’s from a current Sociology course in gender equality and diversity. “Women are fond of dress and gossip; are helpless, emotional, weak; and act like children, not because it is there nature, but because they are educated or trained this way” (p. 213b). Wollstonecraft’s assertions were revolutionary when taking into account the historical context of her vision. Hence, both genders can benefit from studying her feminist perspective, then contemplating how her vision has evolved over time in society, as well as advocating for its continued