Mary Wollstonecraft, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
I argued that the weakness of women is made, not given. After surveying the historic page and the living world, I came to a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore, and that women in particular are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, all originating from one hasty conclusion.1
Their minds are not in a healthy state. Like flowers planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty, and the flaunting leaves fade on the stalk long before the season when they ought to have reached maturity.1 The cause lies in a false system of education, gathered from books written by men who considered females rather as women than as human creatures, and who were more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than rational wives.1
The sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage that women are anxious only to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.1 Meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, and to the desire of establishing themselves by marriage, the only way women can rise in the world.2
I charge every writer on female education and manners, from Rousseau to Dr. Gregory, with having made women more artificial and weaker than they would otherwise have been, and so more useless members of society. My objection extends to the whole purport of those books, which render women pleasing at the expense of every solid virtue.3 The ground of my argument is that every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason.
It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from that exercise. This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men, and I extend it to women.3 Nor do I ask them to ape men. I say they have been drawn out of their sphere by false refinement, not by any endeavour to acquire masculine qualities.3 The word masculine is a bugbear. I do not fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude, since their inferiority in bodily strength must leave them in some degree dependent on men.
But why should that dependence be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue?2 Men halt between two opinions and expect impossibilities. They expect virtue from a slave, or from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious.4 From infancy, women should either be shut up like eastern princes or educated to think and act for themselves, and I demand the second.4
An immortal soul that co-operates with the Father of spirits in governing itself contributes to the order of creation, and it has no sex.4 I will add that women must do their part. They act against their real interest when they cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy.4 The illegitimate power they obtain by degrading themselves is a curse, and they must return to nature and equality if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart.3
a profound conviction, that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves, the only way women can rise in the world--by marriage.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men: I extend it to women.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Why do they expect virtue from a slave, or from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?A Vindication of the Rights of Woman