To A Vindication of the Rights of Women
To A Vindication of the Rights of WomenMy own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational
creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and
viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood,
unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true
dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to
endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to
convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart,
delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost
synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are
only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been
termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.
Dismissing, then, those pretty feminine phrases, which the men
condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising
that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet
docility of manners, supposed to be the sexual charac- teristics of
the weaker vessel, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to
virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a
character as a hurnan being, regardless of the distinction of sex,
and that secondary views should be brought to this simple
touchstone.
This is a rough sketch of my plan; and should I express my
conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think
of the subject, the dictates of experience and reflection will be
felt by some of my readers. Animated by this important object, I
shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. I aim at being
useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing
rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than dazzle by the
elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding
periods, or in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial
feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I
shall be employed about things, not words! and, anxious to render
my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid
that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and
from novels into familiar letters and conversation.
These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate
the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that tums away from
simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and
overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart,
render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the
exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and
immortal being for a nobler field of action.
The education of women has of late been more attended to than
formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and
ridiculed...
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