Response to "The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed"

I think that I should begin this post by saying that this reading was really not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I somewhat enjoyed it. All that whining everyone did this summer gave me the worst impression possible of Wollstonecraft, but after a few pages of reading, I realized (for the 4,967th time this year) that people complain way too much.

Though her 18th century writing style was a bit foreign to me, I'm pretty certain that I understood her points considering how often she repeated them (in other words, it seemed to have taken her twenty-two pages to explain an idea that probably could have been made clear in half as many or less.) In all honesty, her line on the first page was enough for me to see where her argument was coming from. She wrote,

"Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and they should be beautiful, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives."

I can't imagine how I could be content with my life if that was how women were viewed today, which is why this essay made me see how thankful I should be that females are no longer expected to be that sort of soulless, docile "toy of man." I expect Wollstonecraft would be proud to know that women are now properly educated and are capable of supporting themselves with dignity. I know I'm proud and so grateful for the things I can do that women from Wollstonecraft's time could not.

However, I can't help but feel a bit angry for those women. The men of their time never had to experience that kind of oppression. Even when Wollstonecraft pointed out how similar men and women can be through examples like females and soldiers both learning to be completely submissive (learning to "acquire manners before morals") and females and males both being overgrown children (due to early debauchery and forced innocence), she made it clear that the fact that the soldiers and males were. . .well. . .males was all the justification they needed for being dependent on orders and/or juvenile.

Overall, I liked Wollstonecraft's piece and do not doubt that I would have supported her one hundred percent had I been around 200 years ago. Her points, though long-drawn-out and rather wordy, were well-made and very important. So many of my annotations for this essay read thoughts like "Sell it, sister!" or "You tell 'em, girl!". Well, let me tell you--I think she sold it.

PS- That link goes to a song that I was thinking about a lot while reading this :)