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In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft manufactured A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to enforce the idea of equal education for women within the minds of males and other intellectuals of her time period. She stresses the variances between men and women are solely caused by the drastic differences in education. During the eighteenth century, women are ineffectively taught because their education is only sought out to create ideal wives and mothers. Anything beyond that is seen as unnecessary since they were said to have few other purposes. Considering the unequal notions of education in England, Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, persistently advocates for the potential women can reach in society if they were educated to the same extent as their male counterparts.
From the eyes of Wollstonecraft, the women’s education system was lacking the means necessary to aid in the development of young females. Females were not being challenged in their educational settings, so they were not able to critically think on virtually any topic. In women’s schools, upper powers attempted to keep them innocent so girls did not know the rightful way they should be educated. When the girls were young, sewing kits and dolls were put in front of them instead of challenging, difficult material which maintained women at a lower intellectual level than men. A women’s education was created so that they are prepared for marriage. It was only to train them to be good wives and mothers.
Majority of the blame for this unideal educational system can be put on the “hereditary honors, riches, and monarchy.” Wollstonecraft exclaimed the opinions on education will never change because the same people with the same beliefs will always be in power. When there is poor leadership in the monarchy, how is beneficial change going to be enforced? This was also a time where Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophies were gaining popularity. He stated that humans are naturally good to themselves and others, but Wollstonecraft disagrees strongly with this assumption because society is not in its “state of nature” because of the lack of interest towards women’s education. She is advocating for a “true state of civilization”2 with gender equality. She also criticizes male professions that have strong power because their egos grow and “the character of every man is formed by his profession.”3 This mindset carries to how men view women because they cannot have jobs with significance which makes women less significant in their eyes.
Wollstonecraft found that women and even society were jeopardized from the lack of education directed towards women. She believed that the typical stereotypes regarding women during this time were caused by this lack of teachings. Women were expected to think with their emotions and feelings, like the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, rather than logic or reasoning, like the views of Denis Diderot. Women cannot develop the skills of rational thinking fully because husbands and fathers shelter and overprotect them. In result of being “protected” from the world, they often act and think like children. They are not exposed to new ideas and stay concerned with their own beauty and receiving the attention from men that they are told to strive for. Entire generations of both men and women can be in jeopardy if a widowed mother has to partake in both roles of mother and father because she has no way of teaching the children applicable skills due to her inadequate education.
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