 Individualism, a Reader, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore, narrated by James Foster. 9. From a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, New York, A.J. Matzel, 1833 Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759 to 1797, was one of the most remarkable and fiercely independent women of her time. She wished to liberate women from the constraints of traditional roles so that they could develop, through the use of reason, their individuality. Although Wollstonecraft expressed ideas that were regarded as radical during the 18th century, many of them have become integral to contemporary views about the importance of female independence. The following is the complete introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792. After considering the historic page and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess that either nature has made a great difference between man and man or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools, but what has been the result? A profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore and that women in particular are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women in fact evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state, before, like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty and the flaunting leaves after having pleased a fastidious eye fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage that the civilized women of the present century with a few exceptions are only anxious to inspire love when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition and by their abilities and virtues exact respect. In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked, especially when it is asserted in direct terms that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement, that the books of instruction by men of genius have had the same tendency written as more frivolous productions and that, in the true style of Mohammedanism, they are only considered as females and not as a part of the human species, when improvable reason is allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute creation and puts a natural scepter in a feeble hand. Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality and inferiority of the sex. But as the subject lies in my way and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver in a few words my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in general is inferior to the male. The male pursues, the female yields, this is the law of nature and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favor of woman. This physical superiority cannot be denied and it is a noble prerogative but not content with this natural preeminence men endeavor to sink us still lower merely to render us alluring objects for a moment and woman intoxicated by the adoration which men under the influence of their senses pay them do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society. I am aware of an obvious inference. From every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to invade against their arduous and hunting, shooting and gaming I shall most cordially join in the cry but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues or more properly speaking the attainment of those talents and virtues the exercise of which ennobles the human character and which raise females in the scale of animal being when they are comprehensively termed mankind all those who view them with a philosophical I must I should think wish with me that they may every day grow more and more masculine this discussion naturally divides the subject I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures who in common with men are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties and afterwards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar designation I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable writers have fallen into for the instruction which has hither been addressed to women has rather been applicable to ladies if the little indirect advice that is scattered through Sandford and Merton be accepted but addressing my sex in a firmer tone I pay particular attention to those in the middle class because they appear to be in the most natural state perhaps the seeds of false refinement immorality and vanity have ever been shed by the great weak artificial beings raised above the common wants and affections of their race in a premature unnatural manner undermine the very foundation of virtue and spread corruption through the whole mass of society as a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character they only live to amuse themselves and by the same law which in nature invariably produces certain effects they soon only afford barren amusement but as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of society and of the moral character of women in each this hint is for the present sufficient and I have only alluded to the subject because it appears to me to be the very essence of an introduction to give a cursory account of the contents of the work it introduces my own sex I hope will excuse me if I treat them like rational creatures instead of flattering their fascinating graces and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood unable to stand alone I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity in human happiness consists I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength both of mind and body and to convince them that the soft phrases susceptibility of heart delicacy of sentiment and refinement of taste are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love which has been termed its sister will soon become objects of contempt dismissing then those pretty feminine phrases which the men condescendingly used to soften our slavish dependence and despising that weak elegance of mind exquisite sensibility and sweet docility of manners and to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being regardless of the distinction of sex and that secondary views should be brought to this simple touchstone this is a rough sketch of my plan and should I express my conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think of the subject the dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by some of my readers animated by this important object I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style I aim at being useful and sincerity will render me unaffected for wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than dazzle by the elegance of my language I shall not waste my time in rounding periods nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings which coming from the head never reach the heart I shall be employed about things not words and anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society I shall try to avoid that flower addiction which has slided from essays into novels and from novels into familiar letters and conversation these pretty nothings, these caricatures of the real beauty of sensibility dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth and a deluge of false sentiments and overstretched feelings stifling the natural emotions of the heart render the domestic pleasures insipid that ought to sweeten the exercise of those severe duties which educate a rational and immortal being for a nobler field of action the education of women has of late been more attended to than formerly yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve them it is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives acquiring a smattering of accomplishments meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty to the desire of establishing themselves the only way women can rise in the world by marriage and this desire making mere animals of them when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act they dress, they paint and nickname God's creatures surely these weak beings are only fit for the Seralio can they govern a family or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world if then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the sex from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul that the instruction which women have received has only tended with the constitution of civil society to render them insignificant objects of desire mere propagators of fools if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them without cultivating their understandings they are taken out of their sphere of duties and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavoring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength must render them in some degree dependent of men in the various relations of life but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue and confound simple truths with sensual reveries women are in fact so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize and gives birth to cunning the natural opponent of strength which leads them to play off those contemptible infantile heirs that undermine esteem even whilst they excite desire do not foster these prejudices and they will naturally fall into their subordinate yet respectable station in life it seems scarcely necessary to say that I now speak of the sex in general many individuals have more sense than their male relatives and has nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium without it has naturally more gravity some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves because intellect will always govern this has been individualism a reader edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore narrated by James Foster copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute production copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute