A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher and writer most known for his works The Social Contract (1762), Discourse on Inequality (1754) and Emile, or On Education (1762). Wollstonecraft cites Rousseau frequently throughout the text as an example of male hypocrisy and of how men perpetuate female stereotypes. On first discussing Rousseau, Wollstonecraft very explicitly states how much she disagrees with him: “reared on a false hypothesis, his arguments in favour of a state of nature are plausible, but unsound” (13).

In his work Emile, or On Education, Rousseau offers the education and upbringing of Emile as an example of how an ideal citizen should be educated; in it, he also discusses the education of Emile’s fiancée, Sophie:

Rousseau declares that a woman should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself. (25)

Wollstonecraft not only disagrees with Rousseau in regard to female education but also argues that writers like Rousseau are responsible for spreading and perpetuating the so-called feminine “ideals”—such as dependency and flirtation—that keep women subordinate to men. In essence, she blames Rousseau—among others—for making “women more artificial, weak characters, than they would otherwise have been” (21).

Milton is an English writer best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), which tells the story of the Fall of Man. Wollstonecraft references Milton because of the way he depicts Eve in Paradise Lost. According to Wollstonecraft, Milton describes Eve as “our first frail mother” (19) and thus reinforces the stereotype of women as frail, soft creatures. Wollstonecraft quite forcefully attacks Milton for this representation, stating that in doing so, Milton “meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind obedience, to gratify the sense of man” (19). 

James Fordyce was a Scottish Presbyterian Minister and poet, known for a collection of published sermons entitled Sermons for Young Women (1766). Fordyce is one of a collection of writers who Wollstonecraft calls attention to because of their writing on female behavior and education and, in particular, the way that it perpetuates women’s subordinate position in society. Wollstonecraft particularly criticizes Fordyce for the tone and language he adopts in his Sermons, which she describes as “artful flattery and sexual compliments” (98). She interprets his tone—in addition to the content of what he says—as demeaning and condescending towards women, and asks instead that he “speak to [women] in the language of truth and soberness” (98). 

Wollstonecraft is less vehement in her criticism of James Gregory’s Letters to His Daughters than other works, as she finds that his tone and viewpoint is more empathetic towards women. Her primary issue with Gregory is that he urges women to act according to “the rules of decorum” (102). Wollstonecraft argues that basing female behavior off a set of rules reduces the need for women to acquire reason and understanding of their own. According to Wollstonecraft, if women did acquire understanding, there would be no need for such rules: “when the mind has been stored with useful knowledge, and strengthened by being employed, the regulation of the behavior may safely be led to its guidance” (102).

Catherine Macaulay is one a group of women Wollstonecraft responds to in one section of Chapter 5. While Wollstonecraft is highly critical of the other women cited, accusing them of helping to reinforce the subordination of women to men, Macaulay is one of few she commends. Macaulay was a historian and writer who authored an eight-volume work on English history and, in addition, the text Letters on Education (1790). Wollstonecraft uses Macaulay as an example of a women who was both capable and intelligent, and proves that women are able to achieve academic and political accomplishments: “Catharine Macaulay was an example of intellectual acquirements supposed to be incompatible with the weakness of her sex” (109).