Wollstonecraft on Women’s “Slavery”: Perspectives from the Enlightenment and Modernity Bridget Reilly College

Mary Wollstonecraft obviously wrote with the intention of raising awareness for women’s rights. She did so unflinchingly and, at times, with language that’s even shocking to us today. During Romanticism, her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman absolutely required attention. She was writing in response to the educational reforms of 1791 that only called for Enlightenment reforms to men’s education (Mellor, 33). Wollstonecraft’s comparison of the plight of women to slavery may sound exaggerated, until one looks at the facts of the time and can see how the rigid gender roles in society enslaved women to the men they were controlled by. Wollstonecraft was disgusted by the idea that the ideas of the Enlightenment were meant only for men to take advantage of. She felt that if the Western world was going to change its rhetoric to one of equal opportunity and dignity for all persons, women should be included in that category.

As Wollstonecraft states, “If women are by nature inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality…their conduct should be founded on the same principles and have the same aim.” (Wollstonecraft, 91). She begs the question that even if women are inferior, why do they not have the same principles and...