POL 203: Western Political Philosophy

Mary Wollstonecraft
Dr. Laila Farooq
In our discussion of social contract theory (and Burke)-

What is missing?
In our discussion of social contract theory (and Burke)-

What is missing?

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?

• The women are not there because……

They are not seen as political or economic agents- their role is inside the
household
Wollstonecraft : context

Women in early 18th century England:

• If you marry, you can not own property

• That incudes your children
• If you defied your husband- they could beat you
• The husband is the wife’s governor- her attorney and her financial
representative
• Divorce was almost impossible (you would really upset the Church)

• More so – socially, women were conceived as feeble, weak and silly

Also the opinion of the ‘enlightened’ ones:

“On the good constitution of mothers depends primarily that of the children; on
the care of women depends the early education of men; and on women, again,
depend their morals, their passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their
happiness. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To
please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by
them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council
them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them -- these
are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their
infancy……Give, without scruples, a woman's education to women, see to it that
they love the cares of their sex, that they possess modesty, that they know how
to grow old in their menage and keep busy in their house."
 "since therefore I acknowledge no difference of sex in your mind
relating ... to truth, virtue and obedience, I think well to have no thing
altered in it from what is [writ for the son]

However:

 "But since in your girls care is to be taken too of their beauty as much
as health will permit, this in them must have some restriction ... 'tis fit
their tender skins should be fenced against the busy sunbeams,
especially when they are very hot and piercing.”
Rousseau (Emille)

“On the good constitution of mothers depends primarily that of the children; on
the care of women depends the early education of men; and on women, again,
depend their morals, their passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their
happiness. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To
please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by
them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council
them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them -- these
are the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their
infancy……Give, without scruples, a woman's education to women, see to it that
they love the cares of their sex, that they possess modesty, that they know how
to grow old in their menage and keep busy in their house."
Locke (in letters to Ludwig)

 "since therefore I acknowledge no difference of sex in your mind relating ... to truth,
virtue and obedience, I think well to have no thing altered in it from what is [writ for
the son]

However:

 "But since in your girls care is to be taken too of their beauty as much as health will
permit, this in them must have some restriction ... 'tis fit their tender skins should be
fenced against the busy sunbeams, especially when they are very hot and piercing.”
“Who ever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau?
Though in the lump he constantly endeavoured to degrade the sex. And
why was he thus anxious? Truly to justify to himself the affection which
weakness and virtue had made him cherish for that fool Theresa. He
could not raise her to the common level of her sex; and therefore he
labored to bring woman down to hers. He found her a convenient
humble companion, and pride made him determine to find some
superiour virtues in the being whom he chose to live with; but did not
her conduct during his life, and after his death, clearly show how
grossly he was mistaken who called her a celestial innocent.” MW
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

• Born in London
• A rather unhappy childhood
• Had limited formal education but educated herself
• Along with her sisters and friends, she had ambitions of having
a school
• She was a caretaker and also a governess but left to pursue
writing
• She had two daughters – died after the second was born (Mary
Shelley)
• Her husband wrote a candid memoir on her life
“I am then going to be the first of a new genus,” MW

• She was at a disadvantage because there were limited employment options

• She was published through a good friend (Joseph Johnson )
• She had limited earnings although her pamphlet was widely published
• She also wrote a children’s novel and another novel
• Note: she did have contemporaries that inspired her
(Condorcet and Macaulay)
• Supported the moderate fraction (Girondists)
during the Revolution – before the chaos
• The Vindication.. came after the 1791
Talleyrand report in France
Wollstonecraft main argument:

• She believed in reason

• What is the reason for men and women to be different?
• Women have souls- which means they have moral understanding- then
why are they not part of the discussion?
• In fact- sexism is like an offence towards nature
• If its not nature: it must be the social structure that women face
• It’s the difference in their education
Wollstonecraft main argument:

• Her idea of rights is based on individual rights and not collective rights
• Rights don’t come from governments- they come from nature
• Both men and women are rational beings- only different because of what
they have been taught in society
• Women and men should thus receive the same education
• She was opposed to wealth being passed to the eldest sons:

“the only security of property that nature authorizes and reason sanctions is,
the right a man has to enjoy the acquisitions which his talents and industry
have acquired; and to bequeath them to whom he chooses.”
Wollstonecraft on education

• Did not like home education or boarding schools

• Day schools allow children to interact with each other
• A lot of physical exercise
• Schools should be under the government (to keep parents from
interfering?)
• Girls and boys should be taught together
• She realized that some students will be trained in skills and in these
cases they should attend school in the morning and then go to the
other school
• She shows the logical flaws in the arguments that make women
naturally subversive to men

“Women should be taught anatomy and medicine to make them rational

nurses of their infants, parents, and husbands”
“meek wives will be foolish mothers”
• Study together ????

“Girls and boys still together?

I hear some readers ask: yes.
And I should not fear any other
consequence than that some
early attachment might take
place". Besides, this would
be a sure way to promote early marriages, and from early marriages the
most salutary physical and moral effects naturally flow.” pp 389
“There must be more equality established in society, or morality will
never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even
when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind are chained to its
bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through
ignorance or pride.” pp195

Notice the word morality

• All this talk of political reformation was impossible without social
reformation – and women are half the society
She critiqued the men before her writing in the name of liberty:

• Burke; for his acceptance of inequality. He considered poverty to be a part

of the social order. She wrote him a ‘letter’ called A Vindication of the
Rights of Man
“Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English
liberty.… But softly — it is only the property of the rich that is secure; the
man who lives by the sweat of his brow has no asylum from oppression; the
strong man may enter — when was the castle of the poor sacred? — and the
base informer steal him from the family that depend on his industry for
subsistence.… I cannot avoid expressing my surprise that when you
recommended our form of government as a model, you did not caution the
French against the arbitrary custom of pressing men for the sea service.”
• Rousseau: woman’s education should be centered around man’s needs
• For Rousseau, education should help man discover his true nature. Practical
education is more important – and why would women want to discover
themselves when they naturally don’t have the ability to?

“What opinion are we to form of a system of education, when the author

(Rousseau in Emile) says...‘Educate women like men, and the more they
resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.’ This is the very point
I am at. I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves.
The most perfect education, in my opinion, is …to enable the individual to
attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce
to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its
own reason.” MW pp
Rousseau – he had it coming

• Women lack reason, and morality stems from reason – so women need men to protect
their morality

In Sophie, her garb is described as, "simple as it seems, was only put in its proper order to
be taken to pieces by the imagination."

"Is this modesty? Is this a preparation for immortality?” MW

”Men have superior strength of body, but were it not for mistaken notions of beauty,
women would acquire sufficient to enable them to earn their own subsistence, the true
definition of independence". Let us then, by being allowed to take the same exercise as
boys, not only during infancy, but youth, arrive at perfection of boys, that we may know
how far the natural superiority of man extends.”
Critique:

• Her husband Godwin’s biography tainted her reputation as a political

theorist.
• Is she really a revolutionary ?
• Refers to women in third person- condescending? (Anca Vlasopolos)
• Almost sounds like a masculine critique
• She also reinforces traditional roles of wife, mother and daughter
• Her writing style is not academic
Influence

• “Mother of feminism”
• Associated with liberalism
• Against arbitrary government
(for representation)
• Equality in the household Newington Green
• Economic equality (pay gap?) 2013

• Gender is ‘constructed’ http://www.maryonthegreen.org/

• Challenging traditional roles

• Universal education
 "A mother has the biggest
influence on children... I
disagree with this western
Still relevant? concept, this feminist
movement, it has degraded the
role of a mother. My mother
had the greatest impact on my
life.” IK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7p9Ab4wrzI
Mad men (60s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhm_HZ9twMg
Contemporary conservatism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygsVEouHU68
And the response

(why are these two speaking past each other?)

“You know that as a female I am particularly attached to her—I feel
more than a mother's fondness and anxiety, when I reflect on the
dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be
forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart.
With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility, and cherish delicacy of
sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the
thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard—I dread to unfold
her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit—
Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!” MW on her older daughter Fanny
Feminist critique: Pateman

• Where are the women in social contract theory?

• They are not a part of the civil society, though Hobbes considers them in the state of
nature
• The ‘sexual contract’ is the hidden part of the social contract. Thus all contracts are
really against equality for subjection
• The sexual contract precedes the social contract in the sense that civil life precedes
public life
• Women have to enter into marriage (or slavery or prostitution) – but how an they
enter contracts when they are not ‘individuals’ in the first place?
• Thus all this  contractarianism is not for an end goal of freedom (for women)- but
subaudition in a political and social framework created for men
• "Wollstonecraft's dilemma”- relevance ?
Acceptance speech for Johan Skytte Prize 2012 (start at 14.00)

https://media.medfarm.uu.se/play/video/2931

- Intro to her work

- On the different kinds of contracts
- Relevance today
- Current work (participatory budgets and basic income)

Q1 What is the sexual contract?

Q2.What is the racial contract?
Q3 what is the settler contract?
Q4. Why are these relevant today?