Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"

Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"
For those of you who have never heard of Mary Wollstonecraft, please, do yourself a favor and read a little bit. Wollstonecraft was writing in 1792!

"Women are, in common with men, rendered weak and luxurious by relaxing pleasures which wealth procures; but added to this they are made slaves to their persons, and must render them alluring that man may lend them his reason to guide their tottering steps aright. Or should they be ambitious, they must govern their tyrants by sinister tricks, for without rights there cannot be incumbent duties. The laws respecting woman...make an absurd unit of man and his wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cipher."

Sure, things have changed, but in many ways, have they? Just look at the current war on women's reproductive rights--who are the "deciders?"