BF199 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Mary Wollstonecraft, Trophy Wife, Montesquieu
Document Summary
Socialization: woman is naturally weak or degraded by a concurrence of circumstances. Civil government has created insuperable obstacles to female understanding: she is literally saying women are weak in the society she lives in, saying it is a truth. Being oppressed renders you inferior: the uncomfortable implication here is that, at least to an extent, prejudices are self-fulfilling prophecies. Glided cages: women enjoy their inferiority and despise the freedom they do not have the virtue to obtain. And petty tyrants: woman has always been either a slave or a despot and both these conditions retard reasoning. From gender to class politics: the same obstacles to reason are thrown in the way of the rich. Right: women could be doctors as well as nurses, and midwives. But the few employments open to women are menial: officially women are allowed access to these jobs.
