"Reason" and "Sensiblity" in Mary Wollstonecraft's work

[YoungDemCA]

Thought this was an interesting article.

In 1791, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, stating that the first duty of women was to cultivate reason and urging them to avoid excessive sensibility. While declaring these sentiments, she knew full well that she was opposing a long-established tradition: that reason belonged to dominant men and sensibility to irrational and subordinate women.

snip:

In Wollstonecraft's view, women pursued sensibility because they had been taught to do so. Female education emphasized the nurturing of emotion, so that women would be distorted into sexual and passionate beings and grow subordinate to men (reason must control or "moderate" sensibility). In The Rights of Women, the term used for a woman successfully educated in this mode is "romantic."

snip:

The romantic woman lives for love of a man and to this end her thoughts and emotions are dedicated. Wollstonecraft scorns this derivative woman, inveighing against her ignorance of "every nobler passion" and her single ambition "to be fair, to raise emotion instead of inspiring respect"; the "ignoble desire" for romantic love destroys all "strength of character." Romantic love is then a will-o-the-wisp for women, a trap made by men-with their victims' connivance-to enslave and debase an entire sex.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346504?seq=1

My question to HOF: Was Wollstonecraft's view at all an accurate one of how women are conditioned to think and behave in society (as opposed to men)? Is this still relevant?

Furthermore, isn't it pretty convenient that historically and traditionally, it is men who have defined what is and isn't "rational" in the first place? (And how convenient for men that women have been thought to be "more emotionally-driven" and "less rational" than men for much of history! )

[KitSileya]

1. Of course women are still being conditioned to behave in a certain way.

As are men. Every time a boy is denied playing with dolls, he is being conditioned that he should not want to do typical girl things. Every time a girl a comment on her looks rather than on her accomplishments, she is taught that for women, how they look is more important than what they do.

For the most part, equality has been about letting women do what has traditionally been the purview of men. It has been an inherently lop-sided affair, as men, when they could no longer contain women in their "sphere" begrudgingly let women enter the men's "sphere". However, we will not achieve true equality until what has been typical woman's business is as valued as what has been typical men's business. Taking care of kids, nurturing, cooking, housework, etc - we still teach girls that they are "better" at certain things than boys. Boys "can't read body language as well" - and then we ignore that it is because they have not had to learn to read body language like girls, because there are far less consequences for them if they ignore or misunderstand body language. "Boys are less empathetic than girls" - and then we ignore that girls are taught that aren't proper girls if they do not care about other, while boys are cheered if they don't care what others think.

Of course men have defined what is and is not rational - those with power are the ones who set things up, and of course they stack the deck in their favor. We see that with all subaltern groups, not just women.

[nomorenomore08]

4. Very well said.

[seabeyond]

2. whats natural, whats taught, whats gender. what we create. how far we move

from our true self, to conform to society.

i have literally had arguments with men, that i MUST be emotional in sex. because i am a woman. biology said so. literally insist, demand, that i own that. i might of thought that is what i was suppose to be as a woman, since from my first breath, i was created as that in all ways. and still. it never jived. regardless of me being very very clear, (not to mention bringing an intellectual argument, that means prostitutes MUST be emotionally connected with every john? really?) that sex has no connection to relationship. it is sex. what a body does.

yet. i am told, repeatedly, i am NOT allowed to be that.

same with romance. not a romantic bone in me. eeeew. clueless. meh.... yet mother, middle brother and hubby are.

i can go on and on.

emotiona, non... pragmatic, non.... logical, fuzzy.... these are not gender characteristics. we give caricatures for people to live.

[redruddyred]

3. unfortunately, I don't think women can be "rational" whether or not they make

purposeful attempts to be more so, at least when such terms are defined by the patriarchy.

imo the whole concept is highly subjective, esp in discussing gender.

her ideas on romantic love are interesting tho. I'd interject that the problem with the concept is not that men are not capable of love, but that they don't see women as human beings.