A Vindication of The Rights of Women
Research papers on A Vindication of the Rights of Women can explore the historical impact of the writing or look at the philosophical merit of Wollstonecraft's work. Whatever element of A Vindication you need examined, the writers at Paper Masters can assist you in producing the most thorough explication of the work you need.
Mary Wollstonecraft provided one of the first feminist philosophical writings with her authorship of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Written in part as a response to the philosophical assertions of Rousseau and as a political and social manifesto on the condition of women, Wollstonecraft's work is an important work in defining the relationship of gender and early feminist thought in an era of grave suppression of the rights of women.
A Vindication was important in the realm of establishing feminist thought for three major reasons.
- Wollstonecraft established the fact that not all women were pleased with their place in society.
- A Vindication of the Rights of Women gave credence to feminist demands that ran along the same lines as the fundamental principles of American democracy. Therefore, here work helped provided philosophical consistency to the American feminist movement.
- Wollstonecraft clearly illuminated the sociological concepts of gender roles and how popular views undermined the full potential that a woman could contribute to society. She asserted that women who were given equal rights and opportunities would excel and contribute to society on an equal level with men.
How Wollstonecraft's Work was Received
Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas in A Vindication of the Rights of Women were savagely attacked after her death, when the horrors of the French Revolution had convinced most Englishmen that all revolutionary theories were dangerous. However, there is little doubt that her ideas live on, and like Rousseau's, still have an impact on education. Public education, teaching by the exploitation of natural curiosity, practical applications, are all ideas descended from Rousseau and Wollstonecraft. Most distinctive of these is Wollstonecraft's radical notion in A Vindication of the Rights of Women that women and men be educated together.
The Truth about A Vindication
At the time of its publication in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, by Mary Wollstonecraft, was considered radical and revolutionary. By the end of the year Joseph Johnson published a second edition. An American edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Women appeared in Boston and Philadelphia, and a French translation appeared in Paris and Lyons. Aaron Burr admired A Vindication of the Rights of Women and attempted to raise his own daughter according to its principles, although he complained in 1793 that he had "not yet met a single person who had discovered or would allow the merit of this book". Contemporary reactions to A Vindication of the Rights of Women ranged from shock to amusement to enthusiasm. Despite a number of mean-spirited parodies, including A Sketch of the Rights of Boys and Girls and A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes, there is no doubt her book had a tremendous impact on British and American feminism. Her argument that one must educate mothers so they may better raise their children would be echoed by the advocates of "Republican Motherhood" in the first years of the new American republic.