A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Dover Thrift Editions: Literary Collections) Paperback – July 3, 1996

Its nice not to have to trudge through a read. My norm seems to be expletive-laced grumbling while the last page can't come soon enough. Wollstonecraft has been a breath of fresh air. I have to admit that I went into it with bias. I've read so many male philosophers, probably because women at the time weren't taken seriously, as what happened with Wollstonecraft and the ridicule she received. I was nervous that it was going to be trite and overly emotional. It was an extraordinary blend of reason and sentiment.Her style is poetic. At times, it feels it almost has a sing-song way about it. Her ability reminds me of Jane Austen and makes it very hard to put the book down. I wonder how much Austen lifted from Wollstonecraft considering there was a section on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.Her philosophy is intriguing. Wollstonecraft was quite ahead of her time. She felt that women were trapped in an eternal childhood in the way they were treated by their other halves. This left them unable to be good wives much less good mothers. She makes the argument that not only can women reason, but they can be employed in any field. She envisions a time where boys and girls, rich or poor, can be educated together.As an aside, I don't think the public school system has worked out so well. I attended a joke of a school. That is why I am grateful to have the opportunity to homeschool. Even if you disagree with her assessment that children should be publicly educated, her main point is that boys and girls alike can be educated the same. She actually advocated for a private/public school mix. I'm not sure that our modern day system would meet her vision at all.The crème de la crème? Pages upon pages of attacks on Rousseau. I think I've formed a personal vendetta against Rousseau so when she blasts his inane philosophy for nearly 1/3 of the book, it could only bring a sense of sweet justice. If you're no fan of Rousseau, its worth the read just for that. Ya know, the guy who created Civil Religion. The guy who wrote books about how children should be educated then abandoned all 5 of his newborn children to a foundling hospital. The guy who said women were created for his pleasure. Yeah, its a pretty epic takedown. Enjoy.

This book is simply amazing for the author's thinking on women's rights (and responsibilities). I can't believe that such a forward thinking woman was writing in the 1700s. Her clear view of women's rightful position in society, as opposed to their actual position, is made evident at every turn. Her ideas on education - for girls and boys - must have seemed bizarre for her time, but her arguments in favour of her theories are sound and endorsed by modern education philosophies. My only criticism is that she is verbose and repetitious and some of her sentences are over a page long! Well punctuated and quite correct as to grammar, they seem to go on and on. I loved this book and have written down many quotes to keep. One in particular, where she describes foolish women foregoing the joys and duties of motherhood and marriage as chasing the ephemeral "pleasures that sit lightly on the wing of time". What a delightful turn of phrase!

Mary Wollstonecraft discusses several points in this book, which all direct men, women, and society at large, to provide women with a legitimate education. I found her chapters on education itself to be interesting since she spoke of education for girls and boys. In her time period, education was problematic for both sexes. Children were sent off to boarding schools and separated by sex. Schoolmasters dealt with an overload of students leading to strict disciplinary measures designed to keep the children organized but which severely repressed their mental and emotional growth. I thought back to scenes on Dickens' novels and others of the time period where little boys and girls were bullied by the older children and by the teachers.Speaking specifically of the girls, Wollstonecraft showed that appearance and the ability to please was so overly emphasized, that girls had no wherewithal to learn studies, and those they were taught were useless (a few phrases in French or Italian, learned by rote, for example), as there was no understanding applied.Wollstonecraft discussed motherhood and childrearing and I found her examples just as intriguing as those on education. She strongly emphasized morality as well as effectiveness regarding the practices current in her time period. Women who pushed their young offspring off to be raised by nurses did themselves and their children harm. Instead of a bond of love, mutually developing mother and child physically, mentally, and emotionally, Wollstonecraft witnessed mothers returning to their vain, flirtatious, insipid lives, while children were left without good parental role models, to the influences of often immoral peers and caregivers. A mixture of repression and license leads to a vicious cycle where the children, boys and girls, grow up to be like their parents: without respect for women.I enjoyed all Wollstonecraft's counterpoints tp Rousseau's writings, and I'm interested I'm a way to read some of his works. From her quotes, he sounds like a real piece of work. Another historical figure that I wouldn't mind time traveling in order to visit him with a well placed kick in the pants.I highlighted several passages as I read this through Kindle so I don't need to include those quotes in this review.All in all, I'll repeat my first statement in this review when I say that I felt proud and grateful to be a woman in modern times and I owe that in part to this inspiring author!