Feminism and the Enlightenment

Throughout the eighteenth century, the ideas of who could have rights developed. At the beginning, men took all the power and rights. They took on the role as being the stronger sex, intelligent and determined. Whereas, women were governed by their emotions and virtues and were expected to be compassionate and modest. Women played many roles in their lives. The life of women revolved around managing the house which included partnership in home and running farms. Women also performed duties like milking, making butter, and mending clothes for the family.

The Enlightenment era was viewed as the period of individualism and rationality. Women during the Enlightenment challenge the ideas and start questioning their roles in society during this period. Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, argues that since men and women are born with the same ability of reason, women should be able to enjoy as much education and power as men do. Although women did not have equal rights as men, they began constructing their own history in the eighteenth century developing the idea of who could have rights because of unequal manner and education, which led to their determination to begin their own movement.

Expectations of female conduct derived from their virtues. Women had primary roles of housework and childcare. Some women were even allowed to have employment. Even though they could work, women typically had work that was low status, low paid, and the skills pertained more to women than men. The types of work open to women were confined to a few sectors of the economy where the world could be seen as an extension of women’s domestic responsibilities, such as domestic service, clothing trades, and nursing.

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Even though women could work, they were still applying their women’s roles to their jobs and were not allowed to work in machinery and factories like men. This idea of women’s rights developed more towards the end of eighteenth century and beginning of nineteenth century. There was a significant change in gender roles. Women were now the most lustful sex and were seen as mothers, referring to them as the angel in the house.

One big argument discussed in Wollstonecraft’s novel is women’s education. The writers discussed say that women’s education should only be focused on making young women pleasing to men because woman only exists for man. During this time, women were told to not busy themselves with reading, but instead focus on dressing nice. Wollstonecraft believed that educated women could strengthen the society and be equivalent to their husband. An argument that can be made from Wollstonecraft is that she not only wrote this novel to advocate for women but for them to add on to their traditional roles as mothers and wives. Mankind seem to argue that children should be left under the management of women during their children. The author, Wollstonecraft, makes a point to how are people expecting women to raise children well if they have no education? Women in this case would be unfit. If women were allowed the education, children would have a knowledgeable childhood.

Many activist and feminist were determined to begin their own movement. Along with Wollstonecraft, an activist, Olympe De Gouges, who was known as a revolutionary for women’s rights in the French Revolution. Her ambition to fight started when she was unhappy about how women were being treated in the Pre revolution France. Gouges established a series of documents acknowledging women and their equal liberties. By doing this, she wrote a personal letter to the queen, Marie Antoinette, stating how womanhood was being handled. Gouges’s legacy created a discussion in women’s rights that was never discussed prior to the revolution in France.

To conclude, women like Wollstonecraft and Gouges made an impact in the eighteenth century to get women the equal rights they deserved and needed to strengthen the society. Wollstonecraft did not call upon equal rights for women, she just believed that women should get education to be a part of the society along with their male partners. As to why women should not get this education and equality is because women are still shouldered more on the household burden. If they became educated, who would take care of the cleaning and making clothes for the family? Women writers and journalists were part of developing an argument to grant women more access to the tools of reason. A future with educated women will be much brighter than one without them and with the help of movements by women, people of the society and men will agree to having equal power and not be help to high expectations.