Mary Wollstonecraft's Role Of Women

Today, when anyone mentions the United Kingdom, one of the first aspects thought of about the culture is Queen Elizabeth II. She has been an important figure of the nation for decades, and the idea of there not being a woman as the crown regent seems unfathomable. However, the emergence of women being taken seriously in roles of power is a relatively new accepted concept and until recently women in power seemed to be unrealistic and baffling. In the beginnings of the development of London, A People’s History of London by Lindsey German and John Rees suggests that women were seen as inferior beings with little importance to society who should be willing to marry at a man’s whim. Yet, without women, it seems likely that many of the advances

Many women during this time allowed their opinions to be known on the education and working conditions of young women. Mary Wollstonecraft, mentioned previously, was a woman whom wrote about the importance of women and education stating that she “[wished] to see [women] placed in a station in which [they] would advance, instead of retarding, the progress of those glorious principles that give a substance to morality”. Wollstonecraft’s appeal to men was done gracefully as she touched on the importance of a woman’s morals which seemed to have been of utmost importance to these men. Had Wollstonecraft been blunt about the education of women and stated that men were holding women back and should allow women to be their own people, an uncomfortable feeling would have washed of the male population and Wollstonecraft’s article would have been met with great opposition. However, because she justifies the education of women with them needing to able to understand “why she ought to be virtuous”, men were able to see that education of the females in their lives could be beneficial to them as