Just Finished Reading: A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (FP: 1792)

Once I got past the late 18th century use of English (basically frustratingly convoluted and with an amazing number of commas per sentence – though little other obvious punctuation) not only was this slim volume surprisingly modern in tone but what was even more surprising, at least in my mind, was how little had actually changed in the preceding 200+ years.

The author, famously the mother of Mary Shelly and partner of Anarchist philosopher William Godwin would, I think, be very pleased with some of the progress that women have made since her time as she called for equal educational opportunities which would lead, so you suspected, to greater opportunities in work and life – all of which was true. What she might have been less impressed by is the fact that in her day (and still I think in ours) women are taught from an early age to trade on their looks and, basically, to use sex to manipulate men to get what they want from life if they cannot acquire it any other way. That is how she saw the purposely badly educated and uneducated women or those who hid their natural abilities in order to attract a man – because nothing puts a man off marriage faster than a smart opinionated woman apparently (I have seen similar things voiced even today where men are supposedly either afraid of or emasculated by women who can actually think for themselves). Women, it seemed to her, are taught to look pretty, flatter men and have their children. They are not expected to hold their own in conversation, to understand the issues of the day, hold opinions of any kind (good or bad) or actually do anything – in other words they are supposed to be weak both physically and mentally and to need men to control, direct, protect and regularly bed them.

Of course Mary was having none of this. She made the very salient point that these uneducated, weak, shadows of things are expected to bring up the next generation (of both girls and boys) without anything but instinct to guide them. Is it any wonder, the author muses, that the world is in the mess it is? If these women are educated sufficiently and are motivated to excel they could become the mothers of future leaders in society and, generation on generation, actually increase (rather than decrease) the moral and intellectual capital of the country. Of course once women are educated the danger exists that they may no longer wish to serve as baby factories and as pretty birds on the arms of men. So those men would be expected to fight such education tooth and nail (as they did).

200+ years later what has really changed? We now have women doctors, soldiers, politicians and much else besides. We are a world, a continent, away from the conditions of women in late 18th century England. Yet women are still obsessed with their looks, with fashion and with attracting (and keeping) the perfect man. They want children, love, romance, to be pampered and looked after, to be forever beautiful and forever young. They know that smart women, who show how smart they really are, don’t often get this. Books, movies, magazine articles show the Geeky girl as the outsider, the loner, the plain Jane, the spinster. It’s the pretty flighty girl in pretty colours who has empty-headed fun before capturing her man. Looks win, every time, just as they did (apparently) in the 1790’s. I’m sure if she could see us now Mary would be slowly rotating in her grave. So much gained and yet still so far to go.

[2015 Reading Challenge: A Book more than 100 years old – COMPLETE (7/50)]