Wollstonecraft, Woolf and Injustice Toward Women

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" and Mary Wollstonecraft's "The Vindication for the Rights of Women." Both works address feminist issues, most significantly the equality of women. The writer gives a brief biography of Woolf and Wollstonecraft and a synopsis of each work. The paper concludes that while Woolf and Wollstonecraft do not adhere to the conventional arguments of feminism, each author presents her own idyllic way in which women will no longer be subdued because of their sex.

From the Paper:

"When The Vindication for the Rights of Woman was published in 1792 as a response to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly that advocated that women should only receive a domestic education, the term feminism had yet to exist for another century. The absence of the term and definite concept is the not the lone explanation for the reluctance to label The Vindication for the Rights of Women a feminist text, another factor that separates Wollstonecraft from late nineteenth and twentieth-century feminists is her argument that men and women are equal in the "eyes of God" (126), which means men and women are both subject to the same moral standards, as opposed to making the claim for gender equality using the same arguments of the first-wave feminist movement. While Wollstonecraft does call for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life, such as morality, she does not explicitly state that men and women are completely equal. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Printed at Boston, by Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, Faust's statue, no. 45, Newbury-street, MDCCXCII. [1792]; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/144/. 23 March 2007.
• Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. 15 Mar 2006. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/w91r.zip. 23 March 2007.

More papers on Wollstonecraft, Woolf and Injustice Toward Women:

• Analytical Essay # 123224 : "Matthew and John on Women"
• Term Paper # 99786 : "Virginia Woolf and Professional Women"
• Comparison Essay # 139339 : "Poets' Attitudes toward Women"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: