A critical appreciation of A Vindication of The Rights of Women ( Chapter 1 & 2 ) | Mary Wollstonecraft | English Literature

 A critical appreciation of A Vindication of The Rights of  Women ( Chapter 1 & 2 )

A Vindication of The Rights of  Women (1792 ) is a book of prose with thirteen chapters. The writer is a woman Mary Wollstonecraft. She is form  England. "She is perhaps the earliest feminist writer." 

"Vindication" means  justice. The writer says that it is just to give women the same rights that men have. Rousseau was a great French Philosopher. He inspired the French revolution ( 1789 ). But he did not want that women should get the same education that men have. The French thinkers like Rousseau wanted - 

                     "domestic education for girls and women." 

Domestic education would train the girls to be good wives and good mothers. The French thinkers wanted that girls and women should give importance to their beauty. The French thinkers said that - 

                     "The duty of women was to keep men happy." 

The French theory was that "women were physically and mentally weaker than men."  Mary Wollstonecraft rejects many ideas of the French Thinkers. She says that physically men may be stronger women; but -

                      "mentally women are as strong as men." 

Women of her period ( 18th century) could not become great poets, writers and doctors because the women were not given higher education that men got. A thinker has said - 

                      "If  Shakespeare's  sister got the same education that

                        Shakespeare had, she could have written great plays."  

Mary Wollstonecraft gained her education and knowledge through self-study. The society did not give her the privilege that boys got. 

Mary Wollstonecraft was not only a writer, she was an active social worker. She with her sister ran a school for children. we can be sure that in teaching she gave that girls the same after attention that she gave to the boys.

To conclude, the greatness of Mary Wollstonecraft is that she wanted justice for women. She conducted her fight for equality more than two hundred year ago in a highly male dominated society.

The credit of this note belongs to Prof. B.K Mishra sir. There is a video of this note avaliable on Youtube.

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