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kjoofta's review against another edition
3.0
Good depressing reality of what life was like for women during this time period.
erikars's review against another edition
Wollstonecraft's main thesis, which was quite radical for the time, was that women should be educated towards ends other than catching a husband. Quite a good idea, I think. She argued that for women to be good wives and mothers they needed to have their reason trained and their body healthy; apparently simpering delicate women are not terribly useful, as much as the men may have liked them. This book was very difficult to read; sometimes Wollstonecraft seems to wander away from her point, and I am not sure that she always makes it back. However, it is an interesting book if you are interested in the history of feminism. It is also interesting if you are interested in Victorian literature since the period about which Wollstonecraft is writing is round about then.
readingoverbreathing's review against another edition
4.0
The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice may prevail which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves.
When that wise Being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because he could see that present evil would produce future good.
. . . why should [women] be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence?
Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little . . . softness of temper, outward obedience . . . will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.
. . . [men] try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood.
. . . the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an excise of the understanding as best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.
. . . if the blind lead the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the consequence.
Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience . . .
. . . tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.
I cannot understand why . . . females should always be degraded by being made subservient to love or lust.
Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected.
. . . cultivate [women's] minds, given them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals.
And if it be granted that women was not created merely to gratify the appetite of man, or to be the upper servant, who provides his meals and takes care of his linen, it must follow, that the first care of those mothers or fathers, who really attend to the education of females, should be, if not to strengthen the body, at least, not to destroy the constitution by mistaken notions of beauty and female excellence . . .
. . . women are, literally speaking, slaves to their bodies, and glory in their subjection.
Taught from their infancy that beauty is a woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
It is time to effect a revolution in female manners -- time to rest0re them to their lost dignity.
Why do men halt between two opinions, and expect impossibilities? Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?
Vainly then do they beat and foam, restrained by the power that confines the struggling planets in their orbits, matter yields to the great governing Spirit. - But an immortal soul, not restrained by mechanical laws and struggling to free itself from the shackles of matter, contributes to, instead of distributing, the order of creation, when, co-operating with the Father of spirits, it tries to govern itself by the invariable rule that, in a degree, before which our imagination faints, regulates the universe.
. . . for, denying her genius and judgement, it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect.
But, in the present state of things every difficulty in morals that escapes from human discussion, and equally baffles the investigation of profound thinking, and the lightning glance of genius, is an argument on which I build my belief of the immortality of the soul.
. . . the soul of a woman is not allowed to have this distinction, and man, ever placed between her and reason, she is always represented as only created to see through a gross medium, and to take things on trust.
. . . she was not created merely to be the solace of man . . .
And will moralists pretend to assert, that this is the condition in which one half of the human race should be encouraged to remain with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind instructors! what were we created for? To remain, it may be said, innocent; they mean in a state of childhood. - We might as well never have been born, unless it were necessary that we should be created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reason, the power of discerning good from evil, whilst we lie down in the dust from whence we were taken, never to rise again.-
To carry the remark still further, if fear in 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.
I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.
Gracious Creator of the whole human race! hast thou created such a being as woman, who can trace thy wisdom in thy works, and feel that thou alone art by thy nature exalted above her,--for no better purpose?--Can she believe that she was only made to submit to man, her equal, a being, who, like her, was sent into the world to acquire virtue? - Can she consent to be occupied merely to adorn the earth, when her soul is capable of rising to thee?
Yet, if love be the supreme good, let women be only educated to inspire it, and let every charm be polished to intoxicate the senses; but, if they be moral beings, let them have a chance to become intelligent; and let love to man be only a part of that glowing flame of universal love, which, after encircling humanity, mounts in grateful incense to God.
Most of the evils of life arise from a desire of present enjoyment that outruns itself.
Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.
To render it weak, and what some may call beautiful, the understanding is neglected, and girls forced to sit still, play with dolls and listen to foolish conversations; - the effect of habit is insisted upon as an undoubted indication of nature.
Men have superior strength of body; but were it not for mistaken notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to earn their own subsistence, the true definition of independence; and to bear those bodily inconveniences and exertions that are requisite to strengthen the mind.
Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason!
In the world few people act from principle; present feelings, and early habits, are the grand springs: but how would the former be deadened, and the latter rendered iron corroding fetters, if the world were shewn to young people just as it is; when no knowledge of mankind or their own hearts, slowly obtained by experience, render them forbearing?
In life, on the contrary, as we gradually discover the imperfection of our nature, we discover virtues, and various circumstances attach us to our fellow creatures, when we mix with them, and view the same objects, that are never thought of in acquiring a hasty unnatural knowledge of the world.
. . . we expect more from instruction, than mere instruction can produce: for, instead of preparing young people to encounter the evils of life with dignity, and to acquire wisdom and virtue by the exercise of their own faculties, precepts are heaped upon precepts, and blind obedience required, when conviction should be brought home to reason.
. . . life is merely an education . . .
In what light will the world now appear? - I rub my eyes and think, perchance,
that I am just awakening from a lively dream.
. . . when consciousness is lost, it matters not whether we mount in a whirlwind or descend in rain.
. . . whose wisdom appears clear and clearer in the works of nature, in proportion as reason is illuminated and exalted by contemplation, and by acquiring that love of order which the struggles of passion produce?
Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother into vice. Those who are entering life, and those who are departing, see the world from such very different points of view, that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of the former never attempted a solitary flight.
. . . we must attain a knowledge of others at the same time that we become acquainted with ourselves - knowledge acquired any other way only hardens the heart and perplexes the understanding.
Make the heart clean, let it expand and feel for all that is human . . .
She who can discern the dawn of immortality, in the streaks that shoot athwart the misty night of ignorance, promising a clearer day, will respect, as a sacred temple, the body that enshrines such an improvable soul.
What can be more disgusting than that imprudent dross of gallantry, thought so manly,
which makes many men stare insultingly at every female they meet?
The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.
. . . nothing so painfully sharpens sensibility as such a fall in life.
. . . we are little interested about what we do not understand.
elisebkm's review against another edition
5.0
a work of hard fact and common sense; a masterful rhetoric. essential, fundamental reading.