On Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women

warning: this thing is just written to organize my thoughts. it might contain inaccurate information with un-academic vocabulary in vulgar language!

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women. In it, she stressed on the importance of an equal education to women. Women in her time were already allowed to have more education; however, the content of their education was still inadequate of that for men. She further suggested that men should treat women with more respective rather than seeing them as naïve, childlike species that were less capable than men because society needs intelligent attentive mothers instead of ignorant housewives.


She attacked Milton and several others from the Restoration period onwards of their opinion of the role of women. Milton in his Paradise Lost expressed a feelings that knowing no more, women are actually more blessed. Nonetheless, this kind of stupid assumption of the blissfulness of women’s poor knowledge is exactly what Wollstonecraft despises. For mankind to improve, it is of vital importance to elevate women on to the same level with men. Otherwise, our species would only be dragged down by this mass of inadequate companions, who were turned into useless members because of men’s pompous arrogance.

She even compared women to soldiers: these two parties are both sent into a world before having acquire proper knowledge of it and do not have the chance to cultivate their own virtue and determination. They are just both machines that can do superficial things but cannot distinguish true value of the deeds.

And, she even hinted that the story of women being created for men was really just a “story,” meaning it’s not true!! Women were supposed to be equal to men.

This viewpoint is further supported in chapter 4, in which she talked about the contempt to women resulted from their widely recognized frivolity, vanity, irrationality, sensibility and love of pleasure was unjust. It is actually universal that both men and women pursue pleasure. They all have a love of pleasure. So if it’s said that women always have a love for pleasure and a love of pleasure is just a woman’s thing, then men who also have a love of pleasure is no longer man? They become women?

Anyway, the above are some opinions of Mary Wollstonecraft of the inequality of women in her society. However, I find her tone particularly annoying. If I were a women at that time, I could not and would not accept what she said completely. Throughout her Vindication, she attains a tone that is superior to the rest of the female. She thought herself being better than most of them and showed little sympathy for those oppressed. In my opinion, she could be less annoying if she would feel more to the suffering of her fellow sex.

Loneliness

Being alone can be a very good thing.
But not when this overwhelming loneliness crashed me like an avalanche.

If I thought I had experience loneliness, then I was too naive.

This, here, after these months, should be the more exact sad feelings of being alone.

The lack of friends like you back in Taiwan,
it isn't easy.

The lack of hangouts w/ a bunch of lovely friends chatting without any language gap,
it is getting tough.

Still, most of the time, I am alone; but not lonely.

I think I should still be able to handle, when this Loneliness attacks as the allies with Nostalgia.

It is not about how many people I have around, nor how often I socialize.
So knowing more people or going out partying is more a painkiller than a cure.

It is related to the mood, it's the feelings, relating proabably to hormones also.

And there is a question, how can I get rid of this problem in the title?