Rights of Women – Vindicated

Review by Bill Doughty–

U.S. Marine Corps 1st Sgt. Jessica S. Davila, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, March, 18, 2020. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Scott Jenkins)

Here's another book for these days of self-quarantine. Like our recent deep-dive into Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism," this is a perfect opportunity to commemorate Women's History Month and learn more. 

Mary Wollstonecraft is one of the world's first loud and proud feminists, and her "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (Penguin Books, 1792, 1992) – inspired by the U.S. Constitution and French Revolution – is considered a declaration of independence for women.

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster

Miriam Brody edits and writes the introduction In the 1992 paperback. Brody provides a balanced review of Wollstonecraft's work and context for her life, including a troubled childhood, break-up with the father of her first daughter, a suicide attempt, and eventual contentment in marriage. Brody writes:

"Wollstonecraft's happiness was destined to be short-lived. Mary Wollstonecraft died after complications in childbirth in August 1797. Her infant daughter, Mary, survived the birth and lived to marry the poet Shelley and write the gothic novel Frankenstein, a work that many argue investigates the trauma of her own conception causing her mother's death. At the age of thirty-eight, the prophetess of modern feminism was dead of one of the oldest scourges of women. Her long struggle for liberation and a 'useful' life was ended. To those other ancient scourges, economic exploitation and restriction by prejudice and harassment of a full emotional and intellectual life, Wollstonecraft had thrown down her gauntlet."

The uproar by fundamentalists and conservatives in the wake of the publication of "Vindication" was predictable, bordering on book-burning fury over Wollstonecraft's iconoclastic views. "The response of the traditionalists emphasized a hierarchical order within society," Brody writes. To them, "respect for rank and special privileges was necessary to maintain liberty."

Not in Wollstonecraft's view. Liberty is achieved when women and men are educated and truly free. "Liberty is the mother of virtue."

Arguing for equality and social justice, she has only disdain for the rich and powerful who use their positions to discriminate against the powerless. 

She rejects the "divine right of kings" as well as the "divine right of husbands" to "enslave." In one of Wollstonecraft's calls for freedom, she writes:

"The desire of dazzling by riches, the most certain pre-eminence that man can obtain, the pleasure of commanding flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism."

Wollstonecraft laments the lack of democratic representation in her country, calling it a "convenient handle for despotism." She offers this scathing view of "mere gothic grandeur" of royalty: "Taxes on the very necessities of life enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear."

Nearly a hundred years before Lord Acton's famous discovery that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," Wollstonecraft writes:

"Power, in fact, is ever true to its vital principle, for in every shape it would reign without control of inquiry. Its throne is built across a dark abyss, which no eye must dare to explore, lest the baseless fabric should totter under investigation. Obedience, unconditional obedience, is the catchword of tyrants of every description, and to render 'assurance doubly sure,' one kind of despotism supports another. Tyrants would have cause to tremble if reason were to become the rule of duty in any of the relations of life, for the light might spread till perfect day appeared."

King George III

The King of England at the time was George III, the same king who helped ignite the Revolutionary War in the thirteen colonies.

Wollstonecraft condemns narcissistic leaders who practice corruption and rule as tyrants:

"What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies? ... It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power; how then must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue, when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure! Sure it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow-creature, whose very station sinks him necessarily below the meanest of his subjects! But one power should be thrown down to exalt another – for all power inebriates weak man; and its abuse proves that the more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society."

Wollstonecraft's insights sound modern even if the words are from another time. For example: "The respect paid to wealth and beauty is the most certain and unequivocal, and, of course, will always attract the vulgar eye of common minds." 

Overly solicitous chivalry by men toward women, she contends, is outdated even in the late 18th century:

"I lament that women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex (gender), when in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. It is not to bow to an inferior. So ludicrous, in fact, do these ceremonies appear to me that I scarcely am able to govern my muscles when I see a man start with eager and serious solicitude to life a handkerchief or shut a door, when the 'lady' could have done it herself, had she only moved a pace or two."

Women achieved the right to vote in the US and widely in UK in the early 20th century, more than a hundred years after Wollstonecraft's book.

These were radical views in pre-Victorian times, more than a century before women in either England or America would get the right to vote.

"Women, commonly called ladies, are not to be contradicted, in company, are not allowed to exert any manual strength; and from them the negative virtues only are expected, when any virtues are expected – patience, docility, good humour, and flexibility – virtues incompatible with any vigorous exertion of intellect."

Imagine how Wollstonecraft would react if she could see strong, educated and independent women in the United States Navy or Marine Corps today.

In "Vindication" Wollstonecraft calls for physical, mental and moral fitness and what today we call resilience. She despises "the fumes of vanity" – false frailty or self-imposed weakness and "spaniel-like" docility – in which women are valued only for their feelings and emotions and not their reason and intellect:

"It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meanness, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they are created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weakness ... Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to man for every comfort. In the most trifling danger they cling to their support, with parasitical tenacity ... From what? perhaps the frown of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse ...I am fully persuaded that we should hear of none of these infantine airs, if girls were allowed to take sufficient exercise, and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed, and their powers of digestion destroyed. To carry the mark still further, if girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps, created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. It is true, they could not then with equal propriety be termed the sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man; but they would be more respectable members of society, and discharge the important duties of life by the light of their own reason."

Wollstonecraft offers revolutionary views about sex and gender, education and equality, marriage and motherhood, and virtue and authority. Her intellect and arguments trump chauvinists like Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Louis XIV.

Founder George Washington

However, on several occasions she praises General/President George Washington, using him as an example of courage, good planning, benevolent leadership and, above all, modesty as commander in chief and leader of a nation.

"A modest man often conceives a great plan, and tenaciously adheres to it, conscious of his own strength, till success gives it a sanction that determines its character ... George Washington when he accepted of the command of the American forces ... has always been characterized as a modest man; but had he been merely humble, he would probably have shrunk back irresolute, afraid of trusting to himself the direction of an enterprise, on which so much depended."

She commends him for standing down after his term of presidency and returning to his farm at Mount Vernon, refusing calls to become a monarch in the New World.

Praising peace and cooperation, Wollstonecraft says "defensive war" is "the only justifiable war." Interestingly, she speaks out against having a "standing army," though she seems to support the concept of an educated militia. "A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline," she writes. She could not, perhaps, imagine an all-volunteer military.

"Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties ... Like the 'fair sex,' the business of their lives is gallantry; they were taught to please, and they only live to please."

English navy rum rations

The irony of her stereotyping while trying to enlighten can make the reader wince, but perhaps it's forgivable when we consider her times and experiences. Read what she says about British sailors and soldiers circa 1790s:

"Sailors, the naval gentlemen, come under the same description, only their vices assume a different and a grosser cast. They are more positively indolent, when not discharging the ceremonials of their station; whilst the insignificant fluttering of soldiers may be termed active idleness. More confined to the society of men, the former acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks; whilst the latter, mixing frequently with well-bred women, catch a sentimental cant. But mind is equally out of the question, whether they indulge the horse-laugh, or polite simper."

Wollstonecraft's "Vindication" is filled with memorable quotes on education, equality, reason and the nature of motherhood.

Wollstonecraft Quotes

• "Let the honest heart show itself, and reason teach passion to submit to necessity; or, let the dignified pursuit of virtue and knowledge raise the mind above those emotions which rather embitter than sweeten the cup of life, when they are not restrained within due bounds."

• "Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty, ye must remember that the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible with ignorance and vanity."

• "Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed collectively."

• "It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!"

• "But moss-covered opinions assume the disproportioned form of prejudices when they are indolently adopted only because age has given them a venerable aspect, though the reason on which they were built ceases to be a reason, or cannot be traced.

• "...Sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking."

• "I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say, that will not have this condensing energy, unless it be founded on reason. If it be merely the refuge of weakness or wild fanaticism, and not a governing principle of conduct, drawn from self-knowledge, and a rational opinion respecting the attributes of God, what can it be expected to produce?"

• "The education which women now receive scarcely deserves the name."

• "History, philosophy and classical languages are considered too rigourous for minds born uniformly unequal to the task."

• "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but as blind obedience is ever sought for by power tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep woman in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a plaything."

• "Rights and duties are inseparable."

• "Men are certainly more under the influence of their appetites than women; and their appetites are more depraved by unbridled indulgence and the fastidious contrivances of satiety."

• "But, in proportion as this regard for the reputation of chastity is prized by women, it is despised by men; and the two extremes are equally destructive to morality."

• "Women as well as men ought to have the common appetites and passions of their nature; they are only brutal when unchecked by reason..."

• "The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other."

• "How can women be just, or generous, when they are slaves of injustice."

• "Women might certainly study the art of healing and be physicians as well as nurses!"

• "Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out."

• "Ignorance is a frail base for virtue."

• "To be a good mother, a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands."

• "It is a trite, yet a true remark, that we never do anything well, unless we love it for its own sake."

Memorable Prose

Wollstonecraft

Chapter 9, which is titled "Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society," begins with jaw-dropping prose:

"From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it ripens into virtue. 

One class presses on another, for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property; and property once gained will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods. Religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors. 

There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and title produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity of some kind first set the wheels in motion. Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one-half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride."

This is another great read for Women's History Month and for these days and weeks of staying home – reading and learning.


Sailors assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 4, in Sigonella, Sicily, pose for a photo prior to an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, March 20, 2020. All crew positions on the aircraft were occupied by female aviators in homage to women’s history month. (MC2 Juan Sua)

(For excerpts in this blogpost, in most cases I kept with the British spelling and punctuation as in the original.)