Inequalities between the Sexes-Mary Wollstonecraft
In A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft brings out the inequalities between the sexes. Women have a greater moral obligation and accountability, as opposed to men, to whom they are expected to be obedient. The former are required to exercise virtues greater in degree than the latter, and the nature of their character is not founded on the same principles.
Women are degraded by trivial attentions that they receive from men. For instance, it speaks volumes for a man to open or shut a door for a woman, something she can easily do by herself. Unlike men, they are not allowed to exert any manual strength, and only virtues incompatible with vigorous exertion of intellect are expected. Boys are more muscular and better well-built than girls. Wollstonecraft thinks this is only a creation of the society, for it does not allow girls to exercise (Johnson par. 8). She argues that girls would be more respectable people in society and discharge the important duties in life if only the fear in them, natural or created, were treated in the same way cowardice in boys is treated.
Unlike men, women are restricted by society on what occupation they can venture into. The education they receive restrict them on what jobs they can and cannot do. Men, on the other hand, are free to study anything, do anything. Even the government has jobs only for men. Wollstonecraft, however, argues women can do better in these disciplines (Johnson par.11-13).
Work cited
Johnson, J. (1792); A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects.
