This month, I’m reading Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women.
Despite being written 220 years ago, the sentiments expressed still echo the plight of women and how men treat them. I’m saddened that we have not come so far in the fight for equality. Here are a couple of passages that have had me thinking:
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than root them out.(33)
Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tell us that women are formed for softness and grace, I cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in true Mahometan strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we are beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar on the wing of contemplation. How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes!(44-45)
Question: What are your thoughts?
