Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Never Ending Battle of the Sexes.

Personally, I am all for feminism. But unfortunately reading Mary Wollstonecraft's essay about women's rights was a drag. The first six or so pages were insightful and I enjoyed reading them, but then her writing started getting redundant and boring. After a while I lost interest and felt as if I was reading the same things over and over again.
Luckily I felt that for the most part the problems Wollstonecraft came up with were no longer a problem in today's society (yay). Even though sexism still exists, it has gotten so much better over the years. for example she says: "Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous....." which I find is not in our society anymore. All children seem to be taught obedience, but not just girls anymore.
After a while I felt the essay grew to be more of Wollstonecraft complaining and not taking action. The only things she truly suggests are education, but that can only go so far. What about giving women jobs and such? Even though this was written in 1792 I still feel like she could have come up with more creative ideas to help women succeed.
I really liked the vocabulary that Wollstonecraft used, because it helped the whole argument. Overall I thought the points she made were valid, but she seemed to drag the whole essay on. I think it would have had a greater effect on people if the whole essay was shorter and to the point.

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