A Vindication

I just finished reading Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I'm still not entirely sure what specific rights Wollstonecraft thinks women should have—other than education, which is her primary focus—but overall I found the book very interesting.

Mostly, I was surprised: I was not expecting her to base her foundation of rights on theological grounds. Given her interest in Rousseau, I was expecting a more naturalistic argument, but that's definitely not her take. She argues that if women, like men, were endowed by God with both immortal souls and reason, then they are equally capable of virtue and independence. (In Wollstonecraft's words: "If woman be allowed to have an immortal soul, she must have, as the employment of life, an understanding to improve.") A simple and persuasive argument, in my opinion. Vindication does not have a nuanced theology, though, and on my (cursory) reading, Wollstonecraft seems to be a deist, though a sincere one. Whatever her religious convictions, in her book it's clear that a higher good forms the basis upon which equality (all types of equality) rest.  

I was further surprised by how many of Wollstonecraft's points are still relevant to today's sexual politics. Throughout the book she takes aim at the common 18th century idea that women hold a sexual power over men that lends them greater sway than any political enfranchisement possibly could. This idea seems to come really close to the 21st century vision of the henpecked husband, catering to his wife's irrational whims in exchange for a place in the marriage bed. Just as in the 18th century, the idea of men being in thrall to their wives undercuts the need for women's rights: after all, why do women need to keep pushing for equality, when they already wield so much power over their husbands? 

Wollstonecraft also zeroes in on the vapidity of the marriage market in a way that still rings really true. Since women are taught that attracting a husband is of paramount importance, Wollstonecraft argues, they can't help but grow up valuing beauty and artifice over virtue and education:

Men, for whom we are told women were made, have too much occupied the thoughts of women; and this association has so entangled love with all their motives of action; and...having been solely employed either to prepare themselves to excite love, or actually putting their lessons in practice, they cannot live without love...They want a lover, a protector; and behold him kneeling before them—bravery prostrate to beauty!

We've come a long way since 1792, and yet, judging by this description, things have not changed all that much. (See: The Bachelor.) I guess the lesson here is that no amount of education or equality can correct for the shallowness of humanity. 

Wollstonecraft & Shelley

I recently finished reading a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley. The book is somewhat histrionically titled Romantic Outlaws but, given the unorthodox lives that both Wollstonecraft and Shelley lived, histrionics don't seem altogether unwarranted. 

Wollstonecraft died only 10 days after Shelley was born, so chronologically their lives did not overlap for long, but Charlotte Gordon alternates the book chapters between mother and daughter, which highlights the influence of Wollstonecraft's legacy on Shelley's life.  

For some reason, though, I was particularly struck by a peripheral tidbit about Wollstonecraft's relationship with William Godwin, Mary Shelley's father:

They relied on the birth control system of the time: no sex for three days after menstruation, and then, since everyone believed that frequent intercourse lowered the possibility of conception, a lot of sex for the rest of the month.

Given that she was using this method: 1) with a man who was not her husband at the time, and 2) while already the unwed mother of a small child, this seems like utter lunacy to me. Couldn't she put together that sex = babies, and therefore more sex = more babies? People had been reproducing for thousands of years by 1797—had no one figured this out?! Even blood-letting seems more logical.

In any event, the book achieved exactly what I imagine the author wanted: I am now in the process of reading Wollstonecraft, and I have every intention of finally getting around to finally reading Frankenstein, too. I am overdue for both, but particularly Wollstonecraft, given that she's the only female political theorist of note born before 1900. I avoided reading her because I assumed she was added to the canon only because she was a woman. While I still think this is probably true, I've realized it doesn't matter much. She wrote the first modern argument for women's equality, and it's possible that only a woman would have written such a book.