Wednesday, August 6, 2014

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weakness.” what is the meaning of this quote

In the Vindication, Wollstonecraft argues that women need to be better educated so they can become partners and actual helpers to their husbands, as well as better parents. Instead of a rational education, however, as she notes in the quotation, women are educated to seem soft and submissive, to be emotional, and to use their beauty and seeming fragility to manipulate men.
The "meannesses" women exhibit as a result of their miseducation include treating other women, including their daughters, as rivals, using underhanded strategies to get what they want, and acting like tyrants to their servants because it is how their husbands treat them. The unique situation of women creates such "cares" and "sorrows" as inability to provide for themselves if their husbands die; loneliness, for they see other women as enemies; and absence of rational companionship, for they are perceived by their husbands as baby machines and slaves, rather than intelligent companions and equals.

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