Wollstonecraft's Birth of Cunning
Male Oppression and the Resulting Behavior of Women
Commentary on Mary Wollstonecraft's essay, Vindication on the Rights of Woman, exploring how male dominance causes womanly behaviors that men have grown to despise.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s essay, "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," highlights her negative views on women’s poor education, “frivolous” (Wollstonecraft 234) nature, and their inability to achieve any recognizable status beyond that of a beautiful plaything.
However, she also illustrates the reasoning behind these subversive behaviors; women are disallowed from accomplishing anything greater. Because they hold the power in the position of oppressor, men ultimately shape and reinforce the attributes in women that undermines men’s authority; most namely women’s able and artful employment of –what males deem to be- cunning.
How Wollstonecraft Views Men
In order to understand how women develop an alternative to male dominance, one must understand males, as viewed by Wollstonecraft. She portrays men’s gain of control through masculine metaphor, the most distinct of which being the monarchy.
Wollstonecraft believes that the attainment of power is reached through, “vile intrigues, unnatural crimes, and every vice that degrades our nature” (236). The means by which kings come to rule, “has made them, by their very station [sink] necessarily below the meanest of his subjects” (236). By achieving power through brutality and offense, it becomes tainted, and their rule through subjugation creates social discontent.
The Standing Army
Similarly, Wollstonecraft uses the image of a, “standing army,” which she believes to be “incompatible with freedom” (236) as a reflection of how, for a male-dominated organization, duty does not necessarily equal honor.
Men, she deems, should be moved by their sense of moral justice and honor. Instead, very few practice chivalry, and are only motivated through, “command…for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with headlong fury” (236).
Subordination, at its heart and in all practices, is “injurious to society” (237), created by weak men, “and its abuse proves that the more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society” (236).
Classism and Women's Roles
When two classes are created, one with power and the other without, the underclass will, no doubt, develop methods of coping with their suppression, whether it be building unrest until they mobilize to overthrow the government, or simply switching on auto-pilot and running without any semblance of reason or any feelings of self-worth. With this argument in place, Wollstonecraft goes on to postulate how subordination forces women to become spinners of underhandedness and deceit.
Women, Wollstonecraft argues, “spend many of the first years of their lives acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty” (234).
At a young age, girls are taught to conform to the ideal of delicacy; their mothers instill in them a certain, “knowledge of human weakness” (237). Through a savvy (i.e. cunning) understanding of what will produce an outcome of marriage, mothers inform their daughters to posses, “softness of temper, outward obedience, and puerile propriety” (237) that will win them the protection and financial security that comes with ensnaring a man who expects them to be beautiful and soft.
Even at this tender age, women are taught that they must exhibit outward weakness, however dishonest that portrayal may be, twisting their intellects into a means of ensuring that they achieve such a marriage, and therefore security, that they would not have attained by their efforts elsewhere.
Male and Female Childhood
Though it may appear that the propagation of these ideas occurs because of the women themselves, looking deeper into the childhoods of males and females will reveal that this means of education is encouraged by men, and reluctantly accepted by women; they have no other option.
Wollstonecraft indicates that women are confined to cramped rooms, forced to wear bindings and corsets and full skirts, are expected to listen and make small-talk, and are instructed to dress and act this way from young childhood (250). She refutes the idea that young girls enjoy playing dress-up and lavishing attention upon their dollies; instead, she believes that girls simply do this because they have no other outlet, and are unable to run and play freely as boys are. This results in women turning to gossip and frivolous talk in order to occupy themselves.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Vindication on the Rights of Woman. Damrosch, David. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. New York: 2002.
