A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
scattered abroad; but gentlewomen are too indolent to be actively
virtuous, and are softened rather than refined by civilization.
Indeed the good sense which I have met with among the poor women
who have had few advantages of education, and yet have acted
heroically, strongly confirmed me in the opinion, that trifling
employments have rendered women a trifler. Men, taking her ('I
take her body,' says Ranger.) body, the mind is left to rust; so
that while physical love enervates man, as being his favourite
recreation, he will endeavour to enslave woman: and who can tell
how many generations may be necessary to give vigour to the virtue
and talents of the freed posterity of abject slaves? ('Supposing
that women are voluntary slaves--slavery of any kind is
unfavourable to human happiness and improvement.'--'Knox's
Essays'.)
In tracing the causes that in my opinion, have degraded woman, I
have confined my observations to such as universally act upon the
morals and manners of the whole sex, and to me it appears clear,
that they all spring from want of understanding. Whether this
arises from a physical or accidental weakness of faculties, time
alone can determine; for I shall not lay any great stress upon the
example of a few women (Sappho, Eloisa, Mrs. Macaulay, the Empress
of Russia, Madame d'Eon, etc. These, and many more, may be
reckoned exceptions; and, are not all heroes, as well as heroines,
exceptions to general rules? I wish to see women neither heroines
nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.) who, from having received a
masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution; I only
contend that the men who have been placed in similar situations
have acquired a similar character, I speak of bodies of men, and
that men of genius and talents have started out of a class, in
which women have never yet been placed.
CHAPTER 5.
ANIMADVERSIONS ON SOME OF THE WRITERS WHO HAVE RENDERED WOMEN
OBJECTS OF PITY, BORDERING ON CONTEMPT.
The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on
the female character, and education, which have given the tone to
most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the
sex, remain now to be examined.
SECTION 5.1.
I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of the character of
women in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My
comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles,
and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the
artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that
it seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner,
and make the application myself.
Sophia, says Rousseau, should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is a
man, and to render her so, it is necessary to examine the character
which nature has given to the sex.
He then proceeds to prove, that women ought to be weak and passive,
because she has less bodily strength than man; and from hence
infers, that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and
that it is her duty to render herself AGREEABLE to her master--this
being the grand end of her existence.
Supposing women to have been formed only to please, and be subject
to man, the conclusion is just, she ought to sacrifice every other
consideration to render herself agreeable to him: and let this
brutal desire of self-preservation be the grand spring of all her
actions, when it is proved to be the iron bed of fate, to fit
which, her character should be stretched or contracted, regardless
of all moral or physical distinctions. But if, as I think may be
demonstrated, the purposes of even this life, viewing the whole,
are subverted by practical rules built upon this ignoble base, I
may be allowed to doubt whether woman was created for man: and
though the cry of irreligion, or even atheism be raised against me,
I will simply declare, that were an angel from heaven to tell me
that Moses's beautiful, poetical cosmogony, and the account of the
fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what my
reason told me was derogatory to the character of the Supreme
Being: and, having no fear of the devil before mine eyes, I
venture to call this a suggestion of reason, instead of resting my
weakness on the broad shoulders of the first seducer of my frail
sex.
"It being once demonstrated," continues Rousseau, "that man and
woman are not, nor ought to be, constituted alike in temperament
and character, it follows of course, that they should not be
educated in the same manner. In pursuing the directions of nature,
they ought indeed to act in concert, but they should not be engaged
in the same employments: the end of their pursuits should be the
same, but the means they should take to accomplish them, and, of
consequence, their tastes and inclinations should be different."
(Rousseau's 'Emilius', Volume 3 page 176.)
"Girls are from their earliest infancy fond of dress. Not content
with being pretty, they are desirous of being thought so; we see,
by all their little airs, that this thought engages their
attention; and they are hardly capable of understanding what is
said to them, before they are to be governed by talking to them of
what people will think of their behaviour. The same motive,
however, indiscreetly made use of with boys, has not the same
effect: provided they are let to pursue their amusements at
pleasure, they care very little what people think of them. Time
and pains are necessary to subject boys to this motive.
"Whencesoever girls derive this first lesson it is a very good one.
As the body is born, in a manner before the soul, our first concern
should be to cultivate the former; this order is common to both
sexes, but the object of that cultivation is different. In the one
sex it is the developement of corporeal powers; in the other, that
of personal charms: not that either the quality of strength or
beauty ought to be confined exclusively to one sex; but only that
the order of the cultivation of both is in that respect reversed.
Women certainly require as much strength as to enable them to move
and act gracefully, and men as much address as to qualify them to
act with ease."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Children of both sexes have a great many amusements in common; and
so they ought; have they not also many such when they are grown up?
Each sex has also its peculiar taste to distinguish in this
particular. Boys love sports of noise and activity; to beat the
drum, to whip the top, and to drag about their little carts:
girls, on the other hand, are fonder of things of show and
ornament; such as mirrors, trinkets, and dolls; the doll is the
peculiar amusement of the females; from whence we see their taste
plainly adapted to their destination. The physical part of the art
of pleasing lies in dress; and this is all which children are
capacitated to cultivate of that art."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Here then we see a primary propensity firmly established, which
you need only to pursue and regulate. The little creature will
doubtless be very desirous to know how to dress up her doll, to
make its sleeve knots, its flounces, its head dress, etc., she is
obliged to have so much recourse to the people about her, for their
assistance in these articles, that it would be much more agreeable
to her to owe them all to her own industry. Hence we have a good
reason for the first lessons which are usually taught these young
females: in which we do not appear to be setting them a task, but
obliging them, by instructing them in what is immediately useful to
themselves. And, in fact, almost all of them learn with reluctance
to read and write; but very readily apply themselves to the use of
their needles. They imagine themselves already grown up, and think
with pleasure that such qualifications will enable them to decorate
themselves."
This is certainly only an education of the body; but Rousseau is
not the only man who has indirectly said that merely the person of
a young woman, without any mind, unless animal spirits come under
that description, is very pleasing. To render it weak, and what
some may call beautiful, the understanding is neglected, and girls
forced to sit still, play with dolls, and listen to foolish
conversations; the effect of habit is insisted upon as an undoubted
indication of nature. I know it was Rousseau's opinion that the
first years of youth should be employed to form the body, though in
educating Emilius he deviates from this plan; yet the difference
between strengthening the body, on which strength of mind in a
great measure depends, and only giving it an easy motion, is very
wide.
Rousseau's observations, it is proper to remark, were made in a
country where the art of pleasing was refined only to extract the
grossness of vice. He did not go back to nature, or his ruling
appetite disturbed the operations of reason, else he would not have
drawn these crude inferences.
In France, boys and girls, particularly the latter, are only
educated to please, to manage their persons, and regulate their
exterior behaviour; and their minds are corrupted at a very early
age, by the worldly and pious cautions they receive, to guard them
against immodesty. I speak of past times. The very confessions
which mere children are obliged to make, and the questions asked by
the holy men I assert these facts on good authority, were
sufficient to impress a sexual character; and the education of
society was a school of coquetry and art. At the age of ten or
eleven; nay, often much sooner, girls began to coquet, and talked,
unreproved, of establishing themselves in the world by marriage.
In short, they were made women, almost from their very birth, and
compliments were listened to instead of instruction. These,
weakening the mind, Nature was supposed to have acted like a
step-mother, when she formed this after-thought of creation.
Not allowing them understanding, however, it was but consistent to
subject them to authority, independent of reason; and to prepare
them for this subjection, he gives the following advice:
"Girls ought to be active and diligent; nor is that all; they
should also be early subjected to restraint. This misfortune, if
it really be one, is inseparable from their sex; nor do they ever
throw it off but to suffer more cruel evils. They must be subject,
all their lives, to the most constant and severe restraint, which
is that of decorum: it is, therefore, necessary to accustom them
early to such confinement, that it may not afterward cost them too
dear; and to the suppression of their caprices, that they may the
more readily submit to the will of others. If, indeed, they are
fond of being always at work, they should be sometimes compelled to
lay it aside. Dissipation, levity, and inconstancy, are faults
that readily spring up from their first propensities, when
corrupted or perverted by too much indulgence. To prevent this
abuse, we should learn them, above all things, to lay a due
restraint on themselves. The life of a modest woman is reduced, by
our absurd institutions, to a perpetual conflict with herself: not
but it is just that this sex should partake of the sufferings which
arise from those evils it hath caused us."
And why is the life of a modest woman a perpetual conflict? I
should answer, that this very system of education makes it so.
Modesty, temperance, and self-denial, are the sober offspring of
reason; but when sensibility is nurtured at the expense of the
understanding, such weak beings must be restrained by arbitrary
means, and be subjected to continual conflicts; but give their
activity of mind a wider range, and nobler passions and motives