Mary Wollstonecraft vs D.H.Lawrence
...assumptions about her intellectual ability. She also brings out an educational aspect of things. Wollstonecraft states, that through the education of women, relationships between husbands and wives will be better and the children, future of society will receive a better education. By including the children into these benefits, Wollstonecraft appeals to the men, who at that time considered "females rather as women than human creature; have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers. Mankind also seems to agree that children should be left under the management of women during their childhood. Now, from all the observation that I have been able to make, women of sensibility are the most unfit for this task, because they will be carried away by their feelings, and spoil a child's temper. Wollstonecraft continues to say that women are elevated, acknowledging the "respect" that men pay to women, yet this "respect" is purely directed towards childish qualities rather than noble. She argues that this elevation does nothing but weaken the women. Lawrence writes that men are willing to accept women as an equal, as man in skirts, as an angel, an instrument, but he wouldn't accept her as a human being, a real human being of the feminine sex. Now, Wollstenecraft, in her essay directs her arguments against not only towards men, but mostly at the women's perception of themselves and their own abilities. She claims that the only education women receive is that which is taught by their mothers, "softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a purile kind of property, will obtain for them the protection of men. "Who," try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in the state of childhood". In connecting the way women are treated to how children are treated, emphasis is placed on the fact that as children are dependant on adults, (men), for intellectual guidance, so to do women rely on men, rather than becoming responsible for their own intellectual growth. Lawrence writes that if we look at the modern age now, the modern woman is not really a fool, nor she is childishly naïve. But, he writes, modern men is. He writes if before the woman did not know what she wanted to be, or which pattern to take, now the man took her position. Lawrence writes young men are off their heads, and don't quite know what they want, maybe they need a pattern now? He writes women have their own logic, even if it's not the masculine sort. He states that women have the logic of emotion, and men have the logic of reason. The two are complementary and mostly in opposition. Lawrence writes that the woman's logic of emotion is no less real than the man's logic of reason and the only difference is that they work differently. Also, he writes that since men based on logic of reason, how come then the go and behave in a more -then-feminine unreasonable kind of way when it comes to women? Lawrence writes that then when it comes to modern women, modern men are idiots. Throughout the Vindication, Wollstonecraft makes clear her position that to be a good mother and responsible citizen the woman must be equal with her husband, "and not the humble dependant”, the only way to achieve this is through friendship, and a natural understanding that both are "creatures of reason." Wollstonecraft does not however den...