A sense of revision is in the air: Wollstonecraft

1) Wollstonecraft asserts that the social subjection of women was partly due to nature and partly due to the system of education given to men and women. Why might she have thought this?

This questions requires reflection of what was learnt in semester one, regarding the state of nature and what it is, the two people with particular importance to this question are Rousseau who thought that mankind is naturally bad and Hobbess who thought that the state of nature would be living in fear.

Wollstonecraft accepts that women are physically weaker than men, which is essentially a Romantic idea since Romanticism is all about nature and humankind being determined by nature if not worshiping nature. So women are subjective partly by nature, an accepted contract with nature for Wollstonecraft things like pregnancy for example; nothing can be done about it since it is a natural and biological phenomenon as society couldn't make a law saying 'from now on Men carry children in pregnancy not Women' (that would be both impossible and ludicrous).

However, the system of education during Wollstonecraft's time (1759-1797), did not assist the 'natural problem' if you will, instead it made it worse. Society was very influenced by Aristotle, his writings and the Bible were the two main sources of guidance certainly through the dark ages and medieval times. Aristotle's ideas are laughable with all the scientific enlightenment of information we have today, for example he stated that women are not only a weaker species they are also a different species (something that one might joke about in today's modern society but not intrinsically believe). Aristotle also believed that women were unable to reproduce, to put it in an exact sense, there is no such thing as the female egg, just sperm. In addition to this, women are naturally slaves and must be made and told to do things, else, oh my goodness they will just fall about from anxiety or something for they cannot take initiative.

Wollstonecraft wrote the book Vindication of the Rights of Women, which interestingly criticises women themselves, for accepting their role. She awakens women's need for independence, separating out ares of life saying that in the public sector human beings should come first and that gender specifics only mattered in private life.

Wollstonecraft rejected Aristotle but was influenced by Rousseau, a love/hate relationship with his ideas. She loved his ideas on freedom, expanding it from Royalty. But she disagreed with his book Emile in which it is taught that a women's role is to please a man, to be humble and submissive.