This is my first blog so bear with me:
In chapters 6, 7 and 8, Mary Wollstonecraft is challenging society's status quo by arguing against popular ideas about the nature of gendered socialization. Throughout Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of Women's Rights" she has been debunking the logic of her society that justified the blatant subordination of women. As her argument progresses she investigates different aspects of society that unveil a very broad and deep layout of women's systematic subordination. In earlier chapters, she argues about of women's education and the importance of the cultivation of reason. In chapters 6, 7, and 8 she shifts her attention to the issue of virtue and morality as a social construct that takes away from the potential for women to become complete and del rounded individuals. Wollstonecraft explains the broadly conceived notions of gendered morality and virtue and the rippling effects of "double standardness" that leave women ill equipped to reason past the confines chastity and reputation. At the very core of her argument, Wollstonecraft is saying that people, as a whole, are being socialized to think of women in a light that stunts their potential.
Chapter 6, "The Effect Which an Early Associations of Ideas Has Upon the Character", starts of with a philosophically based argument that suggests that because women were less educated and therefore associated less ideas that their moral character was not as deep. This is seen when she states, "Education thus only supplies the man of genius the knowledge to give variety and contrast to his associations; but there is an habitual association of ideas, that grows with our growth which has a great effect in the moral character mankind."(245) She sets up this platform of moral progress that is based on knowledge to show that the exclusion of women even seeped into the sphere of personal morality. Wollstonecraft talks about women being socialized to hyper focus on ornamental topics like "taste" and intimacy and are not given the same encourage meant to associate ideas out of the realm of their marginalized sphere. Wollstonecraft takes the phrase "every women is at heart a rake", and uses it to as a metaphor to explain the one dimensionality of a woman's existence. Later in the chapter she states, "If such be the force of habit; if such be the force of folly, how carefully ought we to guard the mind from storing up vicious associations; and equally careful should we be to cultivate the understanding to save the poor wight from the weak dependent state of even harmless ignorance." (251) In this quote we see Wollstonecraft talk about the state of women's ability to get past the thought of appearance and fashion be defined by something more substantial.
Chapter 7 signifies a shift in Wollstonecraft's argument; she starts to move format he topic of educate and focus squarely on morals and virtue as they pertain to women's subordination. In chapter 7, cleverly titled "Modesty- Comprehensively Considered and Not as a Sexual Virtue", Wollstonecraft unravels the rhetorical double standard around the word modesty that have deeper effects on gender norms culturally and individually. She says in the first sentence in the chapter "Modesty! Sacred offspring of sensibility and reason! - true delicacy of of mine! - may I unnamed presume to investigate thy nature."(252) From this initial sentence, Wollstonecraft is deconstructing the word on a philosophical level in order to argue against the blind belief in its use. She calls women who aspire to be modest and do so through the means of abasing oneself that they are ultimately buying into a definition of themselves that is constructed somewhere other than from themselves. In this chapter Wollstonecraft references the bible and different books that have molded literary and practical culture. She sights these things as creating a frame for women to obey. "Perhaps the is not a virtue the mixes with every other as modesty- It is the pale moonbeam that renders more interesting every virtue it softens". (262) Here, we see how Wollstonecraft acknowledges that the modesty can be looked at from different angles and be projected onto to different moral situations. For women it was about staying pure and chaste and giving off the impression that they are innocent even though they my be not. In chapter 8, Wollstonecraft continues that conversation. One thing that Wollstonecraft does to challenge the moral norms of the day is make distinctions between the moral standards of society and truly godly morality. She is putting a twist on the way the people view the moral sexuality within marriage by saying, "If an innocent girl become a prey of love, she is degraded for ever, though her mind is not polluted by the arts which married women, under the convenient cloak of marriage practice:nor has she violated any duty - but the duty of respecting herself. "(266) Here we see her talk about how marriage as an institution, that is sacred in the eyes of the church, can have a less than moral effect on the individual. By saying "nor has she violated any duty - but the duty of herself", she is juxtaposing the moral makeup of the culture with internal makeup of the individual woman. By speaking from that standpoint she is speaking for women's individuality.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft
In these latter chapters Wollstonecraft draws more from personal knowledge of society and references literary pillars like the Bible and Shakespeare. In what ways does that help or hurt her argument?
Does her argument progress in any significant ways or does it have the same tone and basis as previous chapters?
Are any of her ideas more progressive than current notions of sexuality?
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