First Wave Feminism—Wollstonecraft

On Reason and Education

1. Women are considered moral beings, yet they are denied social status and equal
rights. Her status is dependent on that of her husband—she belongs to him as his
extension. She does not have the same legal rights (she cannot ask for a divorce, she
cannot leave him), and she does not have the same calibre or degree of education as
he.
2. Education is important for without it, women are kept oppressed for they cannot
develop faculties of reason, and they cannot develop their own virtues. This is
important because society cannot progress if half the population is kept mentally
oppressed.

On Men
1. Men are “overgrown children” to Wollstonecraft, and they are generally unreliable.
2. Men keep women subordinate by making women dependent on them economically
(for lack of work opportunities exacerbated by their lack education).
3. There are two outcomes for men in relation to women—they either have an
indifferent relationship or a friendship. Wollstonecraft argues that indifference
arises when the woman is uneducated and is completely dependent on the man, she
becomes a burden; friendship arises from when she has the faculties of reason to be
able to be a companion to her partner, she is an equal to her husband.

Broader Implications
1. If a mother is uneducated, this will affect the education of her children.
2. A woman can better serve her household as an educated person than if she is not.
She should be a companion to her husband, rather than his servant.
3. Without equality, society cannot progress morally.
4. Women are capable of reason, but the poor education that they receive is only
oppressing them rather than equipping them with a fair chance of achieving what
men can. "Women are in full possession of their intellectual faculties", and a
deprivation of cultivation of these faculties only results in tyranny.

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 5. The education that is given to women only make them subservient and dependent
on men. Their education is acquired through the lens of their husbands and other
men, but Wollstonecraft argues that this education must be independent-- to teach
women how to be independent in their thoughts and this is the only way that they
can be moral beings.

Wollstonecraft’s Dilemma
If something is not a product of your own faculty of reason, then one must not claim it to be
an extension of your own virtue.
Women are both expected to be subordinated and moral in society, but there is a problem
here. If women are meant to be moral, they must be able to exercise their faculties of
reason, and to do this, they must be educated. Yet, if they are to be educated, they cannot
be subordinated by men.

De Gouges – The Declaration of the Rights of Woman

- A twist on the Declaration on the Rights of Man

1. “Observe the Creator in his wisdom… go back to animals, consult the elements…
distinguish, if you can, the sexes in the administration of nature. Everywhere you will
find them mingled; everywhere they cooperate in harmonious togetherness in this
immortal masterpiece.”
This is de Gouges’ introduction to the declaration. She argues that everywhere in
nature you may find no distinction between sexes, only in man does this inequality
exist, and she argues that we must return to that unperverted state of nature. She
states that there is synergy between the sexes (similar to what Wollstonecraft is
arguing—that men and women must co-evolve), and that we have perverted nature
by subordinating women.

2. “Marriage is the tomb of confidence and love”

This is de Gouges explaining that marriage is an institution where love goes to die,
for the woman, unequal in her rights, becomes the property of her husband. As
aforementioned by Wollstonecraft, when entering a marriage covenant, the woman

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 relinquishes all rights to selfhood, her identity is now an extension of her husband’s.
There is no love in this covenant, it is an exchange of her selfhood for economic
liberation.

3. Social Contract Between Man and Woman

This pre-nuptial agreement, proposed by de Gouges as a means of revolt against the
social institution of marriage. It entails, essentially, that man and woman will have
equal claims to property in a union, and that all their children will have equal claims
to these assets. This gives the woman some degree of economic liberation should
she choose to leave her husband.