Monday, January 26, 2009

1/26 notes

Mary Wollstonecraft notes:
Wollstonecraft grew up with a father as an alcoholic, and ended up basically taking care of her family. She was self educated, and decided to write for a living. One important writing was "reflections on a revolution in france", followed by "vindication on the rights of man". The latter, published in January 1790 was seen as effeminate; Mary attacks men for not being "manly", meaning virtuous and rational. She defends liberty, and said that the concept of piece was classist. She treats men as a number of classes, or "men" as all humans

Her next important writing was "vindication on the rights of women". Wollstonecraft isolates women as a class of persons who have been treated the same way historically. She believes that society, through education, trains women to be immoral and irrational. With the current bombardment of gender roles and expectations propagated through the media (intentional or not), I would argue that this could still apply today.
ch.1:
Mary is a proponent of meritocracy: the rise to power due to merits and talents, not birthright. She views education as a subordinate system, inducing immorality. As a future teacher, I value the interests and education of students far over the adherence to a system, or molding students to "fit in" with societal expectations. I hope that I never become a vessel of teaching subordinance.
ch.2:
Women are taught to be subordinate, in order to be pleasing. Wollstonecraft says that soldiers are like women, taught to do as they're told, governed by rules and regulations in order to please others. Essentially, she is proving that men can be educated the same way as women, proving women are not naturally inferior. Everything relies on enculturation. She sees Rousseau as a sensualist. His view is that women are governed by fear, using cunning to render themselves as more alluring. She finds this to be nonsense. Rousseau was seen as standing for equality in the French revolution, but apparently just for men.
ch.3:
Mary says that women are taught to be beautiful, using their weakness to lure men. Women still do this today! I find this particularly unattractive, as I am more interested to someone who is an intellectual peer with me, not someone who needs taking care of. She says the women have been given too much, haven't proven themselves, and have been taking advantage in life rather than working hard to achieve. She fully believes in the power of her own word: if her word doesn't hold true, the world has betrayed her. In life, honesty and transparency are paramount: not traditional virtue as we view now. This is an interesting concept: it seems like Wollstonecraft is challenging the concept of right and wrong itself: who defines this? On what basis?

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