Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, All of Best. Our last episode was part one of a

vindication of the rights of women with strictures on political and moral subjects by Mary

Woolstonecraft published in 1792. Today I'm welcoming back my brilliant reading partner and

dear friend Megan Cahoon Alder,

and we'll jump right back into the book.

Our first topic is education.

So, Megan, can you start us off?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is one that really stands out for me, her vision for the education of women.

You know, she kind of begins by saying women are not the inferior sex.

And then she's like, okay, maybe physically, but not intellectually. You know, they haven't been

given a chance to prove themselves otherwise. So women aren't inferior by nature, but by consequence

of miseducation. And so I really appreciate that. And she goes on to say that women

have been relegated to the realm of sensibility or emotion, which tends to be kind of frivolous

and shallow. And then they're mocked or scorned for it. And yet, you know, she kind of argues,

like, what do we expect of them if that's the only education they're receiving?

We cannot expect more from them if this is all they're given.

So I just kind of hear her saying, cut some, you know, cut women some slack.

Stop mocking them since it's society's fault that they're quote unquote like this. Yeah. She also

argues for women to be educated so that they aren't left destitute if a man decides he no longer

wants to take care of her or if he dies. So she says, girls who have been thus weakly educated are often cruelly left by their parents without provision, and of course are dependent on not only the reason but the bounty of their brothers.

In this equivocal humiliating situation, a docile female will remain some time with a tolerable degree of comfort.

...